Man 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
I must admit I do not really understand the full ramifications, which I guess is why there is a legal argument(s). However I would just comment that the way American Football is organised operates with both a wages cap and a drafting arrangement set to ensure that 'competition' is maintained. This seems to me to be a case where the needs of the sport might override the needs of the individual club and all in the land of the free and opportunity... Just a thought.
The trouble with comparing FFP being imposed on members of what is effectively a private members club ie UEFA, with free trade restrictions on ordinary businesses in Europe is that clubs choose to belong to UEFA in order to compete in various leagues, and if they don't want to play by the rules, they can always leave. Of course this isn't an option for a professional football club as they would have nobody play against, but in theory they could. Other businesses are not forced to belong to an organisation in order to trade, hence there should be no restrictions, so I can see how they could be viewed differently in terms of free market, free trade etc in the eyes of the law. Lawyers though........well I haven't got enough space to give my full opinion of the ambulance chasing, self serving ****ers.
So far as i understand FFP it basically means that sooner or later man utd will win everything all the time
The purpose of FFP was, to the unassuming and innocent, a means to level the playing field, so that fair competition could result, and that sugar daddy clubs couldn't bound off with all the trophies if they threw enough money at the problem. In truth, it has hamstrung clubs like Saints, and become a glass ceiling to a level we're not allowed to enter. I did wonder why Cortese voted against it at the time, and back when he did I thought he was becoming unhinged. But he was right. Now if they wrote the laws to FFP properly and really did put an absolute lower limit on the amount of money a club is able to have splashed at it then we might have some fair competition. As it stands, all FFP does is promote the status quo.
