Championship clubs have voted 21-3 in favour of introducing strict new Financial Fair play rules.  Clubs that overspend will be punished with a Transfer embargo. The details are attached here.

Plans to introduce a model that restricted clubs to spending a percentage of their turnover have been abandoned in favour of 'breakeven' model that restricts the level of losses a club can make.  In the face of practical and legal challenges (outlined in my previous article), the first sanctions will not...

League 1 and 2 clubs have agreed to continue the Salary Cost Management Protocol (SCMP) and impose transfer embargos on overspending clubs from the start of next season (2012/13).

The fall-out from Rangers financial collapse continues. Scottish Premier League (SPL) clubs will vote on new rules at the end of April that would be applied if a club enters Administration or if it suffers liquidation and is replaced by a new club (or "newco").

In future, any club entering administration would be docked 15 points (or 1/3 of their points at the time of the insolvency event, if that is a greater number of points).

Significantly, any "newco" would also be docked 10 points from the...

There has been a great deal of interest recently in whether Manchester City will pass UEFA's FFP test for the first Monitoring Period. The debate merits an explanation of how the FFP rules will apply to City and the implications for the club.

The first UEFA Monitoring Period covers the two seasons either side of the 2012 Summer Olympics (the 2011/2 and 2012/13 season. Clubs have to report losses below E45m (or £38m) over this two year period (i.e. an average loss of no more than £19m a seaso...

Article published 5 April 2012

Football League proposals for the introduction of Financial Fair Play rules appear to have run into difficulty and a delay in implementing the rules looks increasingly likely.

In June 2011, the Football League (FL) announced that Financial Fair Play rules would be introduced into the Championship from the 2012/2013 season.  The FL set out a schedule that would have seen the proposals circulated and then ratified at their Quarterly Meeting of all 72 clubs in Februa...

Article published 4 April 2012

At the UEFA conference in Istanbul, UEFA ratified three more disciplinary measures for clubs that breach FFP rules.  As I outlined in my article on 7 Feb, five measures had previously been agreed at the Nyon Conference in January. The full menu of punishments now reads:

Article published 29 March 2012

Last week was an truly excellent week for Platini and saw him secure approval from the European Commission to the Financial Fair Play rules. Platini has been concerned that any excluded club may challenge the legality of the punishment (hence he recently bolstered his legal dept) (see article from 16 March).  Approval from the European Commission was essential for Platini as he has now closed the door on any legal challenge.  He must have been delighted to see t...

Article published 20 March

Last week, questions were asked in the Spanish parliament about the amount of tax that was owed by Spanish clubs to the government.  The government was forced to admit that it was owed  €752m in back taxes (including €48m owed by Barcelona and €155m owed by Atletico Madrid).  The issue was quickly compounded by the Sports Minister Miguel Cardenel brazenly announcing that they were looking at ways that debt could be written-off.  The reaction from German clubs w...

Article published 16 March 2012

David Conn of the Guardian is one of the most informed journalists regarding FFP. He has contributed to a particularly interesting article produced by CNN.  He outlines that UEFA are "readying themselves for legal challenges from top clubs and sending out a clear message they will be able to counter them," Conn points to the strengthening of the UEFA licensing and legal team with the appointment of top English lawyer Alasdair Bell."

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03...

Article published 15 March 2012

Dan Storey at football365 has written an excellent article on the German footballing model. He makes some interesting points:

• A minimum of 51% of each club must be owned by the club's members
• Club members have the ability to directly affect the running of the club
• A season ticket for Borussia Dortmund costs £152 for 17 domestic home games and one European game
• Average attendance in the Bundesliga last season was 42,690 (7,000 more than the Premier League)
• Due to the...

Article published 11 Mar 2012 

With UEFA keen to ensure clubs' expenditure matches their income, we have carried out some high-level analysis of the subsidy levels that fans currently enjoy.   Looking at two clubs currently in the media spotlight (Man City and Portsmouth), we have calculated how much extra the average fan would have to fork-out if they were to pay the market rate for their ticket (based on the club operating on a break even basis).  

The results are fairly staggering. Man City ...

Article published 10 Mar 2012

Under FFP regulations the cost of acquiring a player's contract (i.e. the transfer fee) has to be written off over the life of the contract.  However, the same restriction does not apply to other contracts. The cost of acquiring a manager's contract (eg.  André Villas-Boas) can be written-off immediately as a one-off hit against that year's financial results.  When Chelsea sacked Ancelotti, they decided to write off the cost of paying up his contract AND the cost...

Rummenigge calls for City to be banned - Mancini takes the bait 6 Dec 2011

A public argument has broken out between Bayern Munich and Man City over the penalties for breaching Financial Fair Play regulations. In an interview with Austrian website www.90minuten.at Bayern CEO Rummenigge makes a stinging attack on City’s spending and expressly calls for UEFA to exclude them from European competion..  Rummenigge explains:

“I recommend that Uefa should think of harsh punishments, otherwise there...

Novel punishment proposed for FFP breaches 26 November 2011

With a UEFA committee due to meet in January to determine the punishment tariff for FFP breaches, an interesting suggestion has been proposed by a blogger at http://www.maracanazo.com/ .  UEFA's previous plan to impose a transfer ban for certain FFP breaches seems to have hit the buffers (due to restraint-of-trade issues and the fact that control of player registrations rests with FIFA and national associations, rather than UEFA).  Th...

UEFA shelves Transfer Ban punishment 24 November 2011

The Telegraph published a significant FFP article which maintains that UEFA have had to withdraw one of the proposed punishments for exceeding the Break Even deficit. The use of a transfer ban was put forward as a favoured punishment at the ECA in September (see article below). However it appears such a ban would fail the EC's restraint-of-trade rules.  This seemingly leaves UEFA with only three options:

1. Levy fines as a punishment (however t...