If no one buys into FFP then what’s the point?
IT’S safe to say the Financial Fair Play (FFP) coffin has been lowered into the ground and the soil has enveloped it. UEFA said yesterday that it will remain committed to the principles of its mechanism for ensuring a level playing field in football but FFP’s reputation lies in tatters after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned the decision to ban Manchester City from the Champions League following “breaches” of the code and those on club licensing regulations.
Those allegations have subsequently been repudiated by CAS on the grounds that there was not sufficient evidence that City had disguised equity funding as sponsorship money. The court did, nevertheless, uphold the fine that City had been issued – albeit reduced from €25m to €10m – on the basis that the club had failed to cooperate with UEFA during its investigation.
For City fans, this was evidence of a witch hunt conducted by UEFA not least when CAS confirmed that the case against the club had been downgraded due to insufficient evidence and because some of the period in question was time barred. For most of the rest of football, it looked suspiciously like the club merely obfuscated and delayed until such time as the statute of limitations elapsed.
And therein lies the main issue: the lack of a global buyin to the ethos of the rules on FFP.
Let’s not forget this was not the first time City had been reprimanded on this front having been fined £49m in
2014 – £32m of which was suspended – for a breach of the regulations.
It is an issue the modern game has faced for some time but the emasculation of FFP strikes at the core of all rulemaking and acceptance of the global players in those regulations being enforced by a governing body.
Instead, there will always be those clubs who look to circumvent the rules of competition, especially when big money is at stake.
Part of the problem is with the rules themselves. Placing a time limit on alleged transgressions was always going to prove troublesome. Yet, in other sports there are not the same impediments to carrying out justice.
When an athlete’s sample tests positive retrospectively, they lose their medals – even when transgressions happen years later. When Saracens broke the salary cap rules in Premiership rugby they were relegated to the second tier.
But, in football, there is rarely surprise when FFP investigations end with little more than a slap on the wrists by way of a fine. Clubs merely need to hire the best accountants and business lawyers to allow them to tiptoe around rules that are there to attempt to guarantee some form of sporting integrity.
The very idea that Manchester City have not prospered on the field due to
The pandemic may produce a form of self-regulation. Clubs are trying to redress some of the worst excesses of recent years following the financial downturn by attempting to drive down prices on transfer fees and wages during contract negotiations. But that will only last as long as everyone agrees on a consensus. That word again.
There have been calls for the introduction of a salary cap but as some have argued they can cause as many problems as they solve. Revenues in American sports, where salary caps work best, tend to be equal throughout the leagues with broadcast money shared among the franchises.
Problems, too, would arise over what cap levels would sufficiently prove to be fair with 60% of say, Manchester United’s revenue, greater than that generated overall by clubs such as Burnley or Watford.
Salary caps would also require a degree of compliance from the nominal big six in England. One of the key reasons for the year-long dispute over the sale of overseas broadcast rights for the Premier League in 2018 was the insistence of the Manchester clubs, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs on each of them receiving a larger slice of the pie.
Hanging over all of the other clubs is the inherent threat from the cartel that they will one day up and leave to join some glitzy European Super League – no doubt where matches will be played in every continent but the one with the eponymous title.
As for City, this has done nothing for them in the popularity stakes among fans of every other club. They won’t care, though, not with a quarter of a billion per season and the futures of their manager, their best players and their reputation at stake.