Financial Fair Play under threat: Brussels court case could potentially lead to rules being scrapped Manchester City are among the clubs that would like to see the rule scrapped IAN HERBERT please log in to view this image Wednesday 25 February 2015 Manchester City’s hopes that Financial Fair Play (FFP) might be ruled illegal rest on a potentially hugely significant court case which opens in Brussels on Thursday. The challenge to Uefa’s regime – which City fell foul of last year – has been brought by football agent Daniel Striani, and supporters of both City and Paris Saint-Germain, and will be heard over the next two days at the Court of First Instance in the Belgian capital. Striani and the fans are being represented by Jean-Louis Dupont, one of the lawyers who secured the landmark Bosman ruling 20 years ago, with Dupont preparing to argue that FFP infringes competition law and should therefore be declared illegal. European football’s governing body, Uefa – which will have its own legal representation in court – insists it has support for FFP from the European Commission, which in October decided not to investigate Striani’s case further. Legal opinion suggests that it may be more than a year before the case is resolved.The case of Karen Murphy, the Portsmouth landlady who took on the Premier League, underlines how drawn out decisions can be. Ms Murphy went to court to fight for her right to use satellite decoders to show live football intended for transmission abroad. The legal argument in the Striani case is that the break-even requirement of FFP is in breach of article 101.2 of the EU Treaty. This article prohibits cartels and other agreements that could disrupt free competition and, therefore, have an impact on consumer protection. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...ly-lead-to-rules-being-scrapped-10070581.html
Interesting read 9s, thanks for posting. I wonder what Monsieur Dupont's fee's are for this! I suspect Tony would be happy to pay them if they win!!
Won't make any difference to us, we are i troubl with the Football League, not UEFA (if only.....). Best way to avoid it is to stay out of the Football League.
If any ruling was made and it was declared unlawful, wouldn't the Football League have to follow suit. You would certainly hope so.
Don't agree with that. UK organisations have to abide by EU law on commercial matters. If the case is won the competition law will be clarified universally and any similar arrangements to UEFA's will also be subject to the ruling. At the very least it should give QPR's lawyers the opportunity to postpone any fine until the case has been heard.
The fine will be imposed pretty soon, when our accounts for last year are finalised I believe. Making the assumption that we will not manage to stay up this season (strong possibility) then unless we pay up the football league chap said earlier in the season that we may be demoted to the conference. It might be too late for us to benefit from cases that may take many months to run their course.
I find this all a bit stupid when applied to football if I'm honest. FFP prevents bankrolled competition, not having it prevents non cash rich teams from competing. The premier League's distribution of prize money prevents some clubs from being competitive to the benefit of others. UEFA's competition entry rules prevent us and hundred's of other teams from taking part. The FA Cup is anti-competitive at the expense of the tiny clubs who would have to win 4 times as many games as a top side to win the tournament. The League Cup excludes non-league teams (well der). All the people that made football into a financial business, arguing about it not being financially equal, spearheaded by the lawyer who made it possible for players to earn hundreds of thousands a week. ****ers the lot of them.
I really do hope this case goes through. It would mean no fine for us as the whole thing would be stated as unlawful, which to me it is and can't be fined under an unlawful act, which in the case of the football league agreement we never signed up to. I have discussed the FFP thing with a Liverpool supporting friend of mine, he was all for it saying things like 'it's not right teams buying the league', which is fine when you support the likes of Liverpool, Man U, Arsenal etc.. With massive guaranteed incomes no matter what, all FFP does is make the teams at the top and those with huge fan bases richer, able to buy the better players that assures they stay at the top getting more of the money and the lucrative European places, don't really see what's fair about that. It promotes an elite with little to no point for the rest of us to have any aspirations, as the only real way to get large numbers of new fans is success, which is not possible without some kind of investment as the 'elite' just pick off your best players a la Bony from Swansea. It’s about time this joke of a ruling is got rid of once and for all, whilst I don’t like the idea of teams ‘buying the league’ (and what Southampton are doing is great, but I think Europa is best they will do and watch their best players be sold off again) it at least gives some of the other clubs a dream of success which let’s face it is not possible with FFP in place. Oh my Liverpool supporting friend wasn’t happy with the prospect of Man U spending another 150 mill in the summer to which I replied ‘well that’s FFP rules for you’
Well, I'll bow to all the legal knowledge on here. Lucky us, hooray for the EU! FFP is a good idea moronically executed. Get rid of it (by all means) the rich clubs just get richer quicker. Only clubs like City and PSG with bottomless Arab pockets backing them can ever break in.
It would establish a legal precedent but seems it is too far off to benefit us. As for Tim's Liverpool's supporting comment about it being good because it prevents teams 'from buying the league'. But football will always have a team that buys the league. With FFP or without. The only difference is that FFP means that which teams manage to buy the leagues remains set in stone. No more instances where City fly from recent league one status to premier league champions. No more Chelsea mid table at best to Champions League winners. Not even a chance for a Wigan or Fulham moving from league 2 to a period established in Prem. FFP's only achievement will be setting in stone the football hierarchy as it currently is. So it's in interests of big clubs to prevent new entrants. Its also in interest of the Swansea, Stoke Newcastle and West Ham where chairman are incapable\ too poor for further investment. This way they can cream in prem money and not worry about drifting to Championship or below. Football will always have the league winners buy it. A max 3-4 teams with similar budgets compete. Forest did it buying Francis for £1m. Newcastle nearly did it with Shearer. Tim ask your mate what Liverpool were trying to do when they bought Carroll for £35m Henderson for £20m and Downing for £20m all in one summer?
Everyone makes it sound like finances are the only factor in football. It has a significant impact but is not everything. Otherwise, we might as well just decide the league based on turnover figures. Imagine the excitement as Gary Linekar introduces weekly highlights includings sales forecasts from the latest club shop sale set to springboard Newcastle up the table and QPR moving up two places by virtue of fining their Moroccan two weeks wages that goes back in the coffers. Goal of the month could be to increase matchday program sales by 25%. Personally, I'm most looking forward to the Fantasy Football competition which involves Excel, a template of a trial balance and some self-updating graphs.
I think this is right. If the EUFA ffp is declared illegal for breach of EU competition laws, it would be hard for the Football League to distinguish their own rules on the facts. Because, on the facts, they appear to offend against competition equally with the EUFA rules. Anti-competition seems to be the basis of threats from "Championship" clubs affected. This is an extract from a Guardian article a years ago: "Some owners that have been bankrolling huge losses to amass a squad capable of winning promotion, notably Leicester, top of the Championship, are believed by Championship sources to have instructed the solicitors, Brabners, to make the legal threat to the financial fair play rules. The Manchester-based solicitors have written to the league's chief executive, Shaun Harvey, objecting over six pages to the FFP rules, arguing they suffer from not being the same as those of the Premier League, will prevent clubs competing, restrict investment by owners and reduce players' wages – which is in fact one of its principal aims. "It is likely that, unless the FFP rules are modified, the Football League should expect a challenge from any number of clubs and/or players or agents suffering sanctions or the consequences of sanctions," warns Brabners' letter, which the Guardian has seen. Other clubs believed to be involved in instructing Brabners are Queens Park Rangers, who lost £23m in 2011-2012, the year of their most recently published accounts, Blackburn Rovers, who lost £37m in 2012-2013, and Wolverhampton Wanderers, who made a £2m profit in 2011-12 in the Premier League but have since suffered consecutive relegations. None of those clubs responded to questions from the Guardian about whether they are in fact involved with the challenge to FFP. Harvey has responded by writing to all league clubs promising to "vigorously defend" the rules."
FFP, as currently configured, merely perpetuates the position of the existing elite clubs and makes their position unassailable. How can it be fair that Man Utd be allowed to spend several times more on transfers in the Summer of 2014 than QPR have spent in the previous 5 years?
All Liverpool fans believe they are the only club since the 1880s never to buy the league. It's part of their collective hive mind myth.
I read somewhere today that last year Cardiff lost £12m and their total debts stand at £174m....we are not the only club in dire financial straits...... FFP will effect a lot of clubs an there will be more administrations to come in the next few years......
I think it is illegal and will be proved so both the top two leagues in the uk have gone around this thinking they make up their own laws They have a history of this and turn a blind eye to how they obtain revenues from TV deals The leagues are the richest on the world ... How did that happen
Richest certainly but given the performances in European competitions perhaps we can stop people saying 'the best League in the world' for a bit.
