Remember Financial Fair Play, aka
FFP? Michel Platini’s magic wand to
put European club football finance
on the straight and narrow, clean out
the swindlers and the fraudsters, and
present the game in a shiny-bright
new light.
It’s back. Under a new name and
with the same flaw: it does nothing
to address the gap between the
hand-to-mouth majority and the
Champions League elite who want
a closed shop to suit themselves
and their “historical status”.
Former UEFA president Platini
aimed to prise the game out of the
greedy hands of those he dismissed
sarcastically as “administrators”.
Sepp Blatter noted the jibe and
never quite forgot or forgave.
Platini drove into UEFA HQ at
Nyon, near Geneva, with a host of
ideas, some sensible, some banal.
Among the latter was a desire to
turn the Champions League back
into the knockout cup competition
of its formative years. Then the
accountants gently explained the
facts of financial life to him, how
the group stage guarantees of
multi-million TV and sponsorship
contracts rendered the European
federation richer than FIFA.
Hence Platini contented himself
with commanding his minions todevise various complex formulae
to offer a handful of middle and
lower-rank European clubs the
possibility of squeezing up among
the elite in the Champions League
group stage.
Then came FFP, a paradise
for lawyers and accountants and
loophole-gougers. That was nothow it was intended. Platini’s idea
was simple: clubs that wanted
tocompetein Europe should
provide audited proof that wages
expenditure did not exceed revenue.
Illogically this was the case for
dozens of clubs whose survival
depended on handouts from
supra-wealthy owners withpersonal, commercial or political
reasons for burnishing their populist
images. Few better vehicles than
a successful football club, whether
that success is judged on a national
or international stage.
Platini would come up with the
ideas and then hand them over to
his trusty general secretary GianniTHEWORLD THIS MONTH
THE INSIDER
Keir
RADNEDGE
Infantino to make them work.
Nowadays Platini believes Infantino
to have been anything other than
trustworthy but that is another story.
In many ways FFP was Infantino’s
proving ground. He understood the
practical intricacies and made it
work. Along the way this introduced
him to a network of influential
European politicians and lawyers
to ensure FFP was compatible with
European Commission regulations.
The eventual edifice comprised
a multi-layered strata of analysis,
assessment, disciplinary sanctions
and appeal procedures.
The effect was measured in hard
cash. Platini, in reviewing the first
three years, said: “Financial Fair Play
has led to a dramatic improvement
in club finances and has restored
business credibility in our sport.
When we began this process,
financial losses stood at€1.7bn
per year but now they are in the
€400-500m range. In a short‘Financial Fair Play with teeth’ – UEFA’s latest
attempt to crack down on football finances
Punished...
Manchester City
were sanctioned
under FFP rules“Financial Fair Play has led to a dramatic
improvement in club finances and has restoredbusiness credibility in our sport”
Michel Platini speaking in May 2015