Without having respected its commitments and having sufficiently adjusted its accounts, Olympique de Marseille (OM) risks new sanctions on the part of UEFA, for non-compliance with financial fair play, these rules which prohibit a club engaged in European football competitions to spend more than it earns.
UEFA announced on Thursday 5 March that the club’s file has been transferred from the Investigation Chamber to the Judgment Chamber of the Club Financial Control Commission (ICFC). OM "Did not comply with the conditions of the negotiated agreement" with UEFA, said the body that oversees European football.
The Marseille club has pledged to cut spending for four seasons. OM had to post "A maximum deficit of 50 million euros" for the financial year ended in 2019, then 30 million euros in 2020, zero euros in 2021 and finally " achieve full compliance with the break-even point by 2023 ", UEFA said in June 2019.
The OM would not have kept its intermediate commitments, in particular with regard to the reduction of the wage bill and the sale of players. At the time of this settlement agreement, Marseille had already been sanctioned. The club has been deprived of 6 million euros on the possible revenues from its future participations in European competitions (2 million firm and 4 million conditioned on the respect of its commitments).
AC Milan have been suspended this season from the Europa League after being, like OM, pinned for their failure to maintain the financial balance demanded by UEFA over the past three years. The size of the deficits was not the same: 126 million euros in losses in 2017-2018, then 146 million. At the end of June 2019, the deficit of the OM exceeded 90 million euros.