Premier League Chief Executive Richard Scudamore has delivered a coded message which says in effect that Manchester City should not worry too much about Uefa’s financial fair play regulations. He is also relaxed about the money City have brought into the Premiership.
Premier League Chief Executive Richard Scudamore has delivered a coded message which says in effect that Manchester City should not worry too much about Uefa’s financial fair play regulations. He is also relaxed about the money City have brought into the Premiership.
One might say, ‘he would, wouldn’t he?’ However, I do think that there has been a certain amount of exaggeration of the likely effects of financial fair play (FFP). I was contacted by two television companies on Monday afternoon on this subject in relation to City. One couldn’t get a satellite truck to me in time and the other simply wanted a web story and gave prominence to the more critical line taken by my friend John Beech. However, in both cases one senses that they were interested in exploring a worst case scenario.
Uefa has to be careful about devaluing its competitions by expelling too many clubs, although there are sanctions it can impose that are short of that to demonstrate that it is acting tough. It has allowed itself an escape route by saying that it will give a club leeway when it is shown to be ‘willing’ and ‘trending’ in the right direction. If Uefa did try to make an example of one club, there would be a basis for a legal challenge.
Oliver Kay had an interesting set of comments in The Times yesterday. He said that one could see the FFP regulations ‘either as an overdue curbing of football’s worst excesses or a cynical attempt by the established elite to restrict the ability of nouveaux-riches clubs such as Chelsea and City the chance to buy their way to success.’
He added perceptively, ‘A personal view is that Uefa, having started out with good intentions, have ended up being dictated to by the European Club Association (ECA), in which Bayern, Milan, Real and United have such strong voices.’