Outrageous deal that makes a mockery of fair play
ASUGGESTION rather than a rule. When it comes to UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp pretty much nails it.
In any list of useless concepts, FFP would fit snugly between the chocolate teapot and the Sinclair C5.
The proof will be there for all to see when Paris Saint-Germain arrive in Glasgow in ten days’ time.
Celtic ended the transfer window scouring the market for a central defender to take on loan for the Champions League.
No one should be breaking out the violins. The Parkhead club had the cash to buy one if they really wanted to.
But not silly money. Not PSG money. The financial gap has become a chasm.
The Qatar Works’ XI have spent the past fortnight spending £364million they don’t really have to acquire the most expensive forward line of all time.
The Ligue 1 runners-up paid a world-record £198m to trigger Barcelona’s release clause for Neymar. More than double the previous record fee paid by Manchester United for Paul Pogba, that’s a level of French extravagance which would have shamed Marie Antoinette.
And they didn’t stop there. Deadline day marked the arrival of Monaco’s 18-year-old superstar Kylian Mbappe, now the second most expensive player of all time at a mere £166m.
IT’S tempting to wonder how much PSG would have spent if they had actually won the French league. To be clear, Brendan Rodgers has one reason to be grateful for the Paris club’s extravagance.
With Edinson Cavani playing back-up to Neymar and Mbappe, teenage striker Odsonne Edouard had as much chance of first-team football at the Parc des Princes as Carla Bruni. That’s the reason Celtic have landed a very decent young prospect on a one-year loan with an option to buy.
But the gratitude should extend only so far. Because Rodgers wants to make Scotland’s champions a team capable of actually competing in the knockout stage of Europe’s biggest competition.
And unless the investigation announced yesterday by UEFA into PSG’s financial chicanery ends in a meaningful punishment, that job becomes a whole lot harder.
Michel Platini pushed through FFP to stop clubs throwing cash around like an Arab Sheikh in a Porsche showroom. The Qatar sovereign wealth fund (QSI) running PSG are laughing in his face.
What’s going on here transcends football; it’s politics by proxy.
Qatar is being shunned by the likes of the UAE and Saudi Arabia for alleged funding of terror.
The captures of Neymar and Mbappe is more than a signature statement by a football club. It’s a nation waving two fingers at the neighbours.
Yet that does nothing to offset some obvious questions.
When PSG signed Neymar, people asked how a club could spend £198m on one player and avoid breaching FFP regulations?
Now they ask a new one. How can PSG spend £198m on Neymar and spend £166m on Mbappe and still not be breaking the rules? The answer is by buying Mbappe now and paying later. Taking the striker on loan from Monaco with an obligation to buy next summer.
It’s a complex business. But if the Neymar fee and a hefty whack of what they have to pay for Mbappe appeared on their balance sheet this year, PSG would certainly breach the rule allowing losses of no more than ¤30m (£27.5m) over three years.
By delaying payment till next year and selling a couple of £50m fringe players in January, they thought they could engineer an escape hatch from UEFA rules.
Under growing pressure, the governing body now have to grow a pair.
Javier Tebas, president of Spain’s La Liga, believes PSG can’t possibly comply with FFP without using inflated sponsorship deals from Qatari companies way above market value. In his eyes, they’re guilty of nothing less than financial doping.
That’s the kind of allegation that normally bothers Celtic supporters a great deal. For many, the Rangers Tax Case — and the way the SFA and SPFL handled it — remains a stain on the integrity of Scottish football.
But in ten days’ time, their team play a club riding roughshod over UEFA regulations in a UEFA competition and there’s been barely a peep.
Rodgers did speak out the other week.
‘If they sign Mbappe, you could rip up Financial Fair Play,’ said the Celtic boss.
It was fair comment then. And it raises a far bigger question now.
Unless the body charged with governing European football act to enforce their own rules, what’s the point?