Rodgers hopeful of City summer spending spree
SCRAPPING OF FINANCIAL FAIR PLAY GIVES CLUBS MORE FREEDOM
FINANCIAL Fair Play (FFP) could reportedly be scrapped with UEFA said to be considering a new system as its replacement.
Italian journalist Tancredi Palmeri is claiming that UEFA is set to bring an end to FFP a decade after it was first introduced.
New protocols will be introduced that will give clubs like Leicester City more freedom over their spending.
City’s owners, the King Power group headed up by Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, are among the richest in the Premier League with a net worth close to £3 billion.
The club’s transfer record has been broken twice in the past two seasons with Ayoze Perez and Youri Tielemans arriving from Newcastle United and Monaco for around £30 million and £40 million respectively.
Other big money transfers have been Wesley Fofana signing from Saint-Etienne last summer and man-of-the-moment Kelechi Iheanacho joining from Manchester City in 2017.
Manager Brendan Rodgers has been backed in the transfer market with City poised to return to the Champions League having competed in the Europa League this season.
As such they are governed by UEFA’s rules relating to spending.
Rodgers spoke last weekend about this summer’s transfer plan, with City not averse to a summer sale.
Last year it was Ben Chilwell who left to join Chelsea, the summer before Harry Maguire departed for Manchester United, and in 2018 Riyad Mahrez moved to Manchester City.
“You always plan and prepare to keep your players, but you always have to have that pipeline for the ‘what if?’ scenario,” Rodgers said.
“For this summer, as I sit here, I can’t see us losing anyone. But, of course, I may have said that about Ben (Chilwell) and he’s gone.
“But certainly we don’t plan to lose anyone.
“I think as well if there’s a summer where you maybe wouldn’t be looking to lose your players, it would be this summer.
“Our idea is to get to the end of the season, finish as strong as we can, hopefully it will be a great season, keep the players we have, and add to
it as opposed to moving any on.
“That would be the message as for now.
“There will be a level of spending. We’ve already been speaking about that over the past few months. We want to continue improving.
“It won’t be the same as pre-Covid. But there will be investment.
“We want to strengthen the squad and I am pretty hopeful we’ll be able to do that.”