Chronic. It is therefore a deflagration, the effects of which remain largely unknown. By suspending Manchester City from any European competition for two seasons, for non-compliance with financial fair play (FPF), the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) used a weapon that was both symbolic and financial, which was doubted that she used one day. It launches a legal battle whose outcome is uncertain, but which will begin before the Arbitral Tribunal for Sport (CAS).
The episode illustrates the paradoxes of financial fair play. Misunderstood, contested, insufficient to stem the financial flight into European football, it still helped restore order and economic rationality. Its central principle – not to spend more than you earn – has had the merit of considerably cleaning up club accounts.
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The door remained open
The FPF has legitimately tackled "financial doping" consisting of the massive injection of liquidity by investment funds, sovereign wealth funds or billionaires. Its regulatory mechanism was, however, too modest to change the balance of power.
He was accused of having closed the door on new entrants (Manchester City and Paris-Saint-Germain), simply guilty of methods similar to those which had previously allowed other clubs to buy or consolidate their place in the hyper-elite.
In reality, this door remained open for the new wealthy. The latest Deloitte report places Paris and City in 5th and 6th place in the revenue ranking in 2018-2019, ahead of Liverpool, Chelsea, Juventus or Arsenal … They are also largely at the top of transfer spending between 2008 and 2018. Their growth has only been slowed down by the constraints of the FPF.
In violation of the rules of financial fair play, an essential part of this income came from overvalued sponsorship contracts with entities related to the owners of the clubs – more or less directly the shareholders of Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
Too coarse special effects
Manchester City had already felt the wind of the ball in 2014 but, as the “Football Leaks” revealed, the club had then negotiated with the leaders of UEFA, in all opacity, a spectacular “discount” on the fine , reduced from 60 to 20 million euros, and various arrangements on sponsorship of convenience.
If we must compare, PSG had obtained the same conditions. It is only due to a formal defect in the cancellation by the CAS of an investigation similar to that targeting Manchester. His contracts were however devalued and he had to significantly reduce the proportion of related parties. In short, he agreed to the fate – still quite advantageous – that was done to him.
The Football Leaks have also led the UEFA Club Financial Control Unit (ICFC) to launch a new investigation into City, concerning the financing of the owner Sheikh Mansour hidden behind front companies. Tricks too coarse to be settled out of court and on the sly.
Manchester City, however, has sunk into denials. Saturday February 15, The Guardian castigated the arrogance, aggressiveness and even conspiracy of the Citizens, who accused UEFA of bias and invoked a cabal. The FPF was designed before the arrival of the Emirati leaders, and its weakness has so far benefited them.
The need to regulate
Many improvised experts assure that the appeals of Man City – first before the CAS, then probably before the Court of Justice of the European Union – will blow up the FPF. This is to ignore both the uncertainties of the law and the fact that the problem is not only legal, but also political.
The liberal tropism of the European Union is no longer as vigorous as it used to be, and UEFA would not embark on this adventure without some assurances. The evidence of the extreme concentration of wealth and the resulting sporting inequity prompted a belated awareness of the need for new regulations.
UEFA has decided to crack down on its previous complacency. Not without ambiguities. Its president Aleksander Ceferin regularly warns of the dangers of inequality, but he has discussed with the wealthiest clubs a reform of the Champions League which would bring it even closer to a closed league …
By shutting down the pump in Manchester City, however, UEFA is signaling a turning point. The sanction is insufficient to challenge the current economic order, but the questions posed by unbridled football liberalization are more likely to be (finally) formulated. For example: should we let states own football clubs?
