With the success of Chelsea and Manchester City in season 2011-2012 still fresh in the memory the debate about “financially doped” clubs is raging at an all time high with everyone looking to UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules to provide a sanctuary from the menace of such clubs. I find it astonishing that the consensus opinion seems to be that FFP is a good thing and one that is desperately needed to halt the march of these lawless billionaires playthings. In fact, the only dissenting voices against FFP are from those that think UEFA won’t be able to apply it and that clubs like City will circumvent the rules by injecting money into the club via sponsorship from one of Sheikh Mansour’s other vehicles (boo!). Indeed City have already secured a monster deal for the naming rights to the stadium and training facilities. When this was announced the collective conscious of the fair play knights took umbrage and angry fists were waved at this transparent dodging of FFP. The “I told you so” brigade band was playing its favourite tune (also named “I told you so”).

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But hang on a minute! What on earth has financial fair play got to do with football? When in any league at any stage in history has there been an even playing field financially? There have been big clubs with enormous resources and financial wealth since time Immemorial and by sheer coincidence those clubs have been incredibly successful for decades. No one has ever cared about fair play before, if there were any dissenting voices against the likes of Real Madrid, AC Milan and Manchester United having an unfair advantage I’ve never heard them.

Let’s be honest, FFP hasn’t come about because UEFA have suddenly developed a conscious and want to protect the best interests of the beautiful game, it’s come about because the established old guard have got their noses out of joint because their cosy, untouchable positions at the apex of world football are under serious threat from a growing list of clubs led by the likes of Chelsea, City, PSG et al. Why were UEFA not perturbed when Real Madrid mysteriously wiped out their debt by selling their training ground (but still keeping it)? Why do they turn a blind eye to the fact that Barcelona and Real have made La Liga a two game shoot out with their massive TV deals while the rest of the league struggle in vain to compete?

UEFA are worried that Manchester City can afford the best players by offering enormous wages but didn’t bat an eyelid when Perez and Madrid brazenly tapped up players and urged them to force through moves to Madrid’s latest attempt to create a footballing version of the Harlem Globetrotters. Barça of course are not innocent of employing such tactics either. Even other members of the G14; Juventus (Zidane), Arsenal (Fabregas) and Manchester United (Ronaldo) were not spared such bully boy tactics. Was that fair play? Given their inaction it was clearly acceptable to UEFA.

It is oft said that football is now big business and indeed the professional nature of how contemporary football clubs are run (with the odd Gary Cook incident aside) is more in keeping with big business than the old style Chairman funding a club. However in the business world, if a company wants to take risks and end up failing that is a legitimate strategy, there is no one to police their activities. Similarly if a company receives a large cash injection from a stakeholder than their ambitions can change practically overnight. Why does football have to be different? Leeds were badly run and paid the price and are now languishing in the lower leagues as a result, risk versus reward and all that.  But with the advent of FFP, if tomorrow they are taken over by a billionaire who wants to invest his (or her, could be a woman) cash into fast tracking them to the promised land of the Premier League (even Champions League) why should an artificial regulation be there to stop them? That wouldn’t happen in the business world so why does it have to happen in football? And anyway, is it right that UEFA should be appointed the gendarme of finances for football clubs?

No, FFP is not about establishing fair play which is a quixotic notion at best, the truth is that it is about maintaining the status quo. The G14 clubs have an iron grip over UEFA and effectively act like a cartel ensuring UEFA pushes their agenda – or else. We only need to look at the forming of the UEFA Champions League as evidence of this. The classic European Cup was long established as the premier tournament to decide the best team in Europe. There was nothing wrong with that format and the trophy was no less prestigious than it is today. The only problem was that only 1 team per league (the Champions, fancy that eh?) could take part and the greed of the top clubs couldn’t be sated on such infrequent visits to the buffet table. The G14 decided they all wanted a piece of the pie every year so threatened to leave UEFA and start their own league – those old enough will remember this as the “Super League” that the red tops prophesied would end football. The outcome as we all know is that the European Cup slowly morphed into the UEFA Champions League – the Super League in all but name and one which has stealthily established itself as THE tournament to win with the poor old Cup Winners Cup becoming collateral damage in the process. The Europa League will soon meet the same fate as its vanished sister tournament as with a lack of interest from clubs and TV alike it is a moribund competition waiting for UEFA to pull the trigger and put it out of its misery.

If you’re not familiar with FFP, in a nutshell, clubs will be obligated to balance their books or break even over a period of time. Essentially clubs cannot continue to spend more money than they generate in revenue; this will be measured as a percentage of their income with a ratio of 50% the target state. The equivalent of tax breaks will be offered to clubs that spend cash on youth development and any investment on training facilities so encouraging that type of expenditure which is a noble aim. Any cash spent in this way will not count as expenditure for FFP purposes.

The whole thing is a lot more complicated but if you have the inclination and the time check out all 90+ pages here. FFP is actually pretty wide reaching and I will concede that there are some good concepts introduced such as protecting smaller clubs who rely on income from player sales to actually get paid on time though why on earth UEFA was not already doing that is anyone guess. City fans can at least accept this one is not aimed at them – I dare say Sheikh Mansour doesn’t struggle to pay his bills on time!

As well as the fact that it suits the established clubs my other point of contention with FPP is that the policing of clubs spending and their ability to take risk with their strategy is ridiculously prohibitive. Circling back to the obvious work around to the expenditure/revenue ratio, if Etihad want to sponsor Manchester City’s kit to the tune of £800m (Dhs 4,480 Billion) isn’t that a legitimate form of income? Here FFP gets all subjective, UEFA may not count such revenue (or a part of it) if it exceeds a similar deal that other clubs have with their sponsors (e.g how much Manchester United are paid by AON). While this may go some way to convincing the naysayers who think FFP can’t be applied, for me, it leads to more questions of its legitimacy. Who decides what the benchmark for a kit deal is? Compare this to a real world scenario – imagine being offered £1m for your house where the average price of a property in the neighbourhood is £200k only to be told by your local council that you could only keep £220k due to fair play regulations that they had established!

Such regulation is not only designed to curb the rise of the nouveau riche but by doing so protects the interests of the established clubs, FFP will mean that the following clubs have the most power in the transfer market (in order of revenue income in 2011 (Deloitte):

• Real Madrid
• Barcelona
• Manchester United
• Bayern Munich
• Arsenal

These clubs you will be surprised to know are all part of the G14 cartel, as are all bar two of the top ten clubs by revenue. This policing of football clubs under FFP will lead to the same inequities we’ve always had in the game but ensure the same old names stay at the head of the table.

But does that make things better or worse than a football world without FFP? In my opinion it actually makes things worse because it effectively condemns the likes of Fulham and Stoke to a life of making up the numbers. These clubs will never be able to compete as the only way they can change the landscape (huge cash injection) will be banned. By introducing FFP UEFA are killing the dreams of millions of football fans who hope that one day they’ll have their very own Red Rom or Sheikh Mansour to catapult them into the big time and give them lifelong memories and isn’t that what football is all about?

 @Us_Monster