UEFA Financial Fair Play

[Lecter]

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmcumeds/uc792-viii/uc79201.htm

Long bit of a quote but it's him in the UK parliament answering questions. The gist is they will ultimately ban a club that thinks the rules do not apply to them, and would be under pressure to do so, but have a number of sanctions in mind and want to help clubs break even.


Quote

Q733 Dr Coffey: So, Monsieur Gaillard, when the crunch comes, Man U might have made a loss, you are very confident UEFA will say, "We appreciate that but you are staying at home and you are not competing in our competition"? I am just thinking if you have a politician running the monitoring system, I think he was Prime Minister of Belgium when-how can I say?-the rules were flexed to allow Belgium and other countries to join the euro, are you saying that Man U-

William Gaillard: Not Belgium.

Dr Coffey: -if they continue as they are with their financial position they will not be playing in the Champions League?

William Gaillard: I think the litmus test of whether we are serious or not in implementing the rules of Financial Fair Play will come on the day when a major European club will fall foul of the rules. If that day we do not sanction them with what is in the book, we will have failed. If we sanction them it will mean that the rules have worked. A better way for the rules to work is for the club suddenly to be unsanctionable and complying with the rules and this is our dearest wish. We don’t wish to have to sanction clubs, especially not by excluding them from our competitions. We wish that they will understand exactly what they have to do over the next five years in order to comply with the rules.

Q734 Chair: So you will apply them with a degree of flexibility? If a club is heading in the right direction and is giving you assurances that it is addressing the problem, the fact that they have breached the rules will not necessarily mean that they will be excluded?

William Gaillard: You are absolutely right. Our rules are looking at every single situation. We already have for the first three years the €45 million flexibility point but we also have different gradations in sanctions, some may be withdrawal of cash from the Champions League or Europa League profits, ending for really serious cases with exclusion from competition. So we have, let’s say, a slope that leads to hell, which is exclusion from competition, but our wish is never to have to go that far and we will make sure that the sanctions are appropriate to the kind of violations that we discover.

Q735 Chair: You say your wish is never to go that far. You said earlier that people will only see that you are completely serious about this when a major club is excluded. So in order to demonstrate your seriousness you are going to have to exclude somebody.

William Gaillard: We may get into a situation when unfortunately one or two clubs don’t believe that we will apply the rules, and this is when we will have to make one or two examples. Right now our dialogue with the clubs tells us that they all understand the kind of situation that they are facing, that the Financial Fair Play Rules are a big help in managing their expectations and the expectations of their fans.

Q736 Chair: But you expect that there may well be a situation where you are going to have to exclude a club at some point?

William Gaillard: Yes, we have to be ready for that.

[RichC]

I can see that interview being used against them if they aren't careful, UEFA will need to apply these rules and sanctions fairly in so far as the clubs that might be seen as "footballing royalty" such as Madrid, Milans, Barca, United and others are dealt with exactly the same way as other clubs that don't adhere to the rules.
I am not sure that they will though as could you imagine them kicking Barca or Madrid out of the CL ? doubtful as it would weaken their own product massively!

[SimonNo7]

All I see in this is, we've made a rule that sounds strong but we've then made it flexible enough that we will never need to use it, well certainly not in the case of any of our big clubs but we will probably use it on a smaller club to show we mean business.

[Vermilion]

All I see in this is, we've made a rule that sounds strong but we've then made it flexible enough that we will never need to use it, well certainly not in the case of any of our big clubs but we will probably use it on a smaller club to show we mean business.

[peekay]

All I see in this is, we've made a rule that sounds strong but we've then made it flexible enough that we will never need to use it, well certainly not in the case of any of our big clubs but we will probably use it on a smaller club to show we mean business.

Yup..Sounds like there are lot of loopholes through which big clubs can escape..No wonder Man City and Abramovich are flexing their financial muscles..

[Vermilion]

All I see in this is, we've made a rule that sounds strong but we've then made it flexible enough that we will never need to use it, well certainly not in the case of any of our big clubs but we will probably use it on a smaller club to show we mean business.

By the time this rule is being followed by all clubs, (if it ever is!) and all the arguing is over, all the excuses, all the threats, all the challenges from clubs trying to fit through loop holes, and challenges from clubs who feel another club is not being sanctioned for spending too much, etc etc, it'll probably be about 10yrs or more from now before we see any true benefit, and spending is brought under control for clubs who have a seemingly endless supply of what amounts to free cash because of an owner, although i have huge doubts that it will ever work.

[BillobShaisley]

I think what it says is that if a big club is in breach but showing a trend towards break even then in the first instance the sanction would be that they will be allowed to compete but be restricted in the prize money they can claim. Whether this is the same pot as the TV money for UEFA competitions I'm not so sure.

[Chrono]

All I see in this is, we've made a rule that sounds strong but we've then made it flexible enough that we will never need to use it, well certainly not in the case of any of our big clubs but we will probably use it on a smaller club to show we mean business.

Absolutely

This is all one big con and I can imagine the only example they will make will be for some poor team that will barely register o the raidar whilst the big clubs flaunt it without a care in the world.

[spanky]

I can see a situation were say arsenal, which is run in a ideal fashion, would complain against man city or chelsea if they felt they were being short changed by uefa by trying to play by the rules. That would be the real test, one big european team playing by the rules officially complaining against another whose just plain reckless.

[Exiled_red]

I can see a situation were say arsenal, which is run in a ideal fashion, would complain against man city or chelsea if they felt they were being short changed by uefa by trying to play by the rules. That would be the real test, one big european team playing by the rules officially complaining against another whose just plain reckless.

[Mostar]

I can see a situation were say arsenal, which is run in a ideal fashion, would complain against man city or chelsea if they felt they were being short changed by uefa by trying to play by the rules. That would be the real test, one big european team playing by the rules officially complaining against another whose just plain reckless.

That would be the only way to truly implement FFPR. That said, it seems they are already looking for excuses not to use them.

[SimonNo7]

That would be the only way to truly implement FFPR. That said, it seems they are already looking for excuses not to use them.

They're not looking for them, they built them into the whole thing from the start.

[RedReet]

I can see a situation were say arsenal, which is run in a ideal fashion, would complain against man city or chelsea if they felt they were being short changed by uefa by trying to play by the rules. That would be the real test, one big european team playing by the rules officially complaining against another whose just plain reckless.

So who's the 'big European team' then?

[Exiled_red]

So who's the 'big European team' then?