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EFA dare not lose its
financial fairplay case
against Manchester City.
Europe’s governing body
has already lost one FFP case against
a mega-rich, state-aided club – the
Qatari-owned Paris Saint-Germain –
on a technicality. A second such failure
against Abu Dhabi-owned City would
undermine the regulatory power it
claims over the European game.
And such a blow against UEFA’s
authority would encourage critics
who believe the old models of sporting
association to be outdated and irrelevant
in the modern, new-tech era.
An obvious first development would
be a renewed pursuit by the elite clubs
of that long-envisioned super league
to usurp the primacy of the UEFA
Champions League from which the
governing body rakes in billions.
The independent adjudicatory
chamber of UEFA’s Club Financial
Control Body (CFCB) say City have
broken the FFP rules by “overstating its
sponsorship revenue in its accounts and
in the break-even information submitted