According to various reports, UEFA have determined the penalties that Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain will face after breaching Financial Fair Play regulations. While the ultimate sanction — exclusion from European competition — will not be levied, it appears that the two clubs will be fined approximately £50m/60m Euro. Both will have their squad size limited for European competitions, down to 21 (for City, and similar for PSG) from the normal limit of 25, and a wage cap will be imposed on that squad.
Financial Fair Play punishments set for PSG, Manchester City
Details have emerged of the penalties that UEFA will impose on Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain following their failure to meet Financial Fair Play targets.
Clive Brunskill
This is the initial offer from UEFA, and the clubs have until Friday to reach a settlement with UEFA. Failure to do so would see the club referred to an adjudication panel, who would impose a non-negotiable penalty. That penalty could, however, be appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. To further complicate matters, other clubs can appeal against any settlement reached if they feel it is too lenient; it is perhaps worthy of note that Arsene Wenger, last week, called on UEFA to ensure that that the rules were respected.
While the fine wouldn’t present too much of a problem to the clubs’ astoundingly wealthy owners, the possible restrictions on squad size could have a serious impact. Those squads would still be subject to the usual restrictions on home-grown players, a minimum of eight, and so the consequence could be a number of high-profile, high-price exclusions. Players are unlikely to be content to move to a Champions League club yet not partake in any of the Champions League football, and if upheld, this might force the clubs to focus their recruitment efforts on domestic talent.
For more information on FFP in general, we refer you to our handy guide. In the meantime, we can presumably expect ferocious negotiation from the clubs, to be followed by some kind of legal challenge if they don’t succeed in getting things reduced. This could get messy. And, just to add to the general air of confusion, UEFA today admitted that they haven’t quite worked out all the details ...
Have asked UEFA what happens to the money from any FFP fines. "Still to be decided" is the answer.
— Martyn Ziegler (@martynziegler) May 6, 2014 Oh good.
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