- At last, the competition watchdog is questioning Uefa
- Arsenal celebrate 100 years since Chapman arrived, as Tottenham sack their manager
By Tony Attwood
While we have often meandered around the topic of financial fair play on this site, it is rarely one that other commentators in England seem to take up, although why that is the case I can never be sure. The media constnatly talk of mega bids for players without any thought of the regulations – but then because 97% of the transfers they mention don’t come to pass I guess that the regs don’t matter to them any more than other bits of reality do.
Of course, the big embarrassment which can’t be mentioned is that the ManC case is still not resolved – all those charges, all that evidence, all those hearings and … still nothing. But that’s England for you.
And fortunately for those of us who think that FFP rules are a good idea. it is not like this in every country, for in many domains we can read of the latest FFP enquiry, and this is a biggie as it involves taking down Barcelona who have what the media in Europe like to call “financial woes”. For translated into English, the media in Spain is reporting that “Due to repeated violations of Financial Fair Play, the club is facing sanctions in the Champions League.”
And that is a bit of a problem for Barcelona for the Champions League is very much what they live for. This last season was most satisfactory for them ending as it did with a table that showed Barcelona top on 88 points and scoring 102 goals in 38 games, and Real Madrid lagging in second on 84 points with a meagre 78 goals. Barca also won the Cup.
All well and good, except that the Uefa is after them over multiple Champions League financial violations. And the media (including an authority as auspicious as the Times) is suggesting that Uefa is going to limit Barcelona’s squad size for the next Champs League round, following a decision by CAS. In fact CAS seem to be getting a bit fed up with the Catalans in that when, as a matter of course, Barca appealed against a Uefa fine of €500,000 for a violation of FFP regulations the Court of Arbitration in Sports announced that they found the fine “relatively light.”
But that is not all, because Uefa’s Financial Control Chamber then issued another announcement, perhaps emboldened by the move against Barcelona, and said that any further breach of this type would be met by even harsher punishment.
Now Barcelona has repeatedly been seen as one of European football’s absolute financial basket cases having sold the rights to the TV coverage of their games for the next quarter of a century and immediately used the money they got from those deals to pay off some debts and buy more players! In fact it appears that the club received over €660 million for those rights, and seriously expected this money to be counted as income for the season in which they received it!
But the authorities would have none of it of course and that money doesn’t get counted in the income for the season it is received when calculating FFP. In short, it’s a bit like Chelsea selling off their women’s club to a company that they own, and then saying that makes them compliant with FFP. (Of course, for the moment it looks like Chelsea have got away with their wheeze, although this Barcelona judgement does suggest that Uefa might now have a look at the scam and come to a different conclusion.)
In fact, what Uefa have done is come up with a way of categorising the income in Barcelona’s case which I haven’t seen before (although that of course might well just be me not paying attention). For Uefa’s financial authorities have said that this income is “proceeds from the sale of intangible assets” which are very much not included in the Financial Fair Play regulations.
Now no one in England is saying that Chelsea might find themselves in the same hot water because the UK media report this stuff when those funny foreigners do it, but the general view seems to be that English clubs don’t fiddle the accounts because that would be just too un-English. But it does suggest that even though the Premier League seem to think that selling part of the club to another company that the club owns is a jolly good wheeze, Uefa might look at this in a bit more depth.
Of course, this is speculation when it comes to Chelsea but Barça has, as the report cited above says, “been caught red-handed.” And their problem is multiplied since they are now, in Uefa’s books, “a serial offender” and they seem to have been told as much.
The one thing that looks like it might let Chelsea (and come to that Aston Villa who are also guilty of FFP crimes) off the hook as in those cases the current digressions are seen as “first offences” and those are normally punished by a fine. But Villa and Chelsea might like to note that if they are naughty again, it could be more than a slap on the wrist.
