By Andrew Warshaw
May 6- Manchester City and Paris St. Germain, both bankrolled by Middle East investors, appear to have broken Uefa’s financial fair play regulations and look like receiving swingeing punishments as a result of their relentless quest to become permanent members of European football’s affluent elite.
The two success-chasing clubs are understood to be among the remaining nine of the original 76 investigated by Uefa for possible breaches of its strict break-even criteria. Those among the nine who have accepted so-called “settlements” are due to be named by Europe’s governing body at the end of this week.
It is not clear whether City and PSG, financed by Abu Dhabi and Qatar backers respectively, will accept the penalties imposed by the Investigatory Chamber of Uefa’s Club Financial Control Body by Friday’s deadline or whether they are appealing to the CFCB’s higher adjudication panel for a final binding decision in June.
Uefa has made its first FFP rulings based on club accounts from the past two seasons – 2011-12 and 2012-13. Under this monitoring period, total losses of €45m were permitted as long as club owners could cover such amounts.
Although no clubs are in danger of being excluded from the Champions League, their image in terms of the way they do business will certainly be questioned once Uefa announces the names of those who failed to sufficiently balance the books.
City, who have franchises in both the United States and Australia, posted combined losses of £149m for the last two seasons – £97m in 2012 and £51.6m in 2013 and have been accused in some quarters of “creative accounting” as have PSG for the way they wiped out losses after backdating a huge sponsorship deal with the Qatar Tourist Authority.
According to some reports, City, favourites to clinch the Premier League title next weekend, have been slapped with a 21-player Champions League squad for next season instead of the usual 25 and are also facing a fine in the region of a massive €60m over three years even though they claim they are close to breaking even. Uefa rules already state that all clubs must field at least eight locally-trained players in European squads.
According to Press Association, the sanctions are very similar to those being handed to PSG, with respective sponsorship deals at the heart of the alleged breaches. City have a £40m a year deal with Etihad Airways, while PSG effectively wiped out losses of 130 million euros by announcing a back-dated sponsorship deal with the Qatar Tourism Authority worth up to 200 million euros a year.
The aim of FFP is to ensure clubs do not spend more than they earn over a given period of time and Uefa boss Michel Platini, who conceived ffp, recently questioned whether such an “innovative” arrangement by PSG was playing by the rules. French newspaper L’Equipe reported that UEFA has ruled the QTA deal should only be valued at half that sum.