Former SPL chief pleased to see FFP rules applied
FORMER SPL chief executive Roger Mitchell admits he has changed his view of Financial Fair Play rules now that national associations are no longer marking their own homework – with Rangers being placed on UEFA’s 18-strong FFP watch list, with sanctions to follow if they fail to meet the governing body’s break- even requirements.
Mitchell admits he previously saw FFP as a box-ticking exercise that was ignored by many of the larger club who could find loopholes to avoid sanctions. And while being placed on the watch list has, according to Mitchell, hampered the Ibrox club’s ability to do transfer business despite the money-spinning run to the Europa League final last season, as well as reaching the lucrative group stage of the Champions League this term, he also argues that Rangers can still compete with their wealthier rivals.
Champions Celtic had a net summer spend of over £20m on Jota, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Alberto Bernabei, Sead Haksabanovic and Daizen Maeda plus loan fees for
Moritz Jenz and Oliver Abildgaard. Rangers, meanwhile, paid £4m for both Ben Davies and Ridvan Yilmaz, while Antonio Colak and Rabbi Matondo each cost £1.8m. There was also a loan fee paid to Bayern Munich for Mailk Tillman yet, tellingly, Yilmaz was the last to arrive on July 25, some 38 days before the transfer window closed.
“If you look at the season Rangers stopped the 10 [2020-21], Celtic spent a lot more than they did on players that year as well yet Rangers still strolled to the title, even though Celtic were so far ahead of them that should never have happened,” said Mitchell, now a sports business podcaster and angel investor in various businesses. “Of course, Rangers have been slightly hampered by UEFA’s intervention but smart recruitment and good coaching can make up the difference.”
Mitchell is pleased, though, that UEFA have finally elected to tackle what Michel Platini f amously described as “financial doping”.
“It’s good to see UEFA becoming directly involved in this matter,” he said. “Financial Fair Play had become
a bit of a shambles and the clubs with the best lawyers could just ignore it, as we’ve seen in the past with Manchester City and PSG. If Rangers believe that these rules have teeth then they’re obviously going to need to be careful when it comes to recruitment, especially since their finances have always been hand-to-mouth in recent years.
“That’s just been the reality of it and they’ve done incredibly well to get where they are but they’ll just have to watch it.
“Previously, it was down to the SFA to check their clubs’ finances but Celtic and Rangers are their biggest assets so the SFA were never going to refuse them European licenses. That’s why the sport wasn’t working – it was flawed governance. All
across Europe you had the same domestic organisation operating as the regulator and the judiciary but they’re also the marketeers so it was difficult for the French Federation to penalise PSG or La Liga to hammer Real Madrid and Barcelona.
“I’m not surprised the SFA washed their hands of it. There was a conflict of interest and UEFA probably realised that the local associations were trying to protect their clubs. You need those three branches of governance to be separate and they weren’t but maybe now they are.”
Rangers received £5m just for reaching the play- off against PSV Eindhoven but the real prize money from UEFA kicks in with qualification for the competition proper. Each of the 32 clubs is guaranteed £ 13.48m just for being there, with additional rewards of £2.4m for each victory and £802,000 for draws.
Celtic and Rangers will also be granted a share of UEFA’s market pool, contributed by broadcasters.
And just by having reached Group A means that there will have been nine sold-out European ties at Ibrox in 2022, with all the corporate hospitality and bonuses from sponsors that entails. On top of that, their fiscal health has been boosted by selling assets Calvin Bassey, Joe Aribo and Cedric Itten for £28.7m.
Yet the Ibrox club has come under criticism for not using more of that money to strengthen a squad which has looked distressingly shallow, particularly in last week’s 4- 0 defeats by Celtic at Parkhead and Ajax in the Johan Cruyff ArenA.