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Chelsea FFP: Euro giants demand radical change amid financial doping claim
Europe’s biggest leagues and clubs are almost certainly lobbying Uefa privately to adopt even stricter FFP regulations to prevent the likes of Chelsea from ‘financial doping’, Football Insider has been told.
Chelsea have spent over £500m on new players since a consortium led by American financier Todd Boehly bought the club from sanction-stricken Roman Abramovich in May last year.
That would – on face value – see the west Londoners fall well outside both Uefa and the Premier League’s financial fair play limits, but Chelsea have used ultra-long contracts to spread the cost and circumvent the spending rules.
In response, Uefa is set to introduce a new five-year limit on the length over which a transfer fee can be amortised.
La Liga president Javier Tebas, a regular and vociferous critic of the Premier League’s business model, has since accused English clubs of “financial doping.”
That is perhaps no surprise given that even the Premier League sides with the most modest transfer budgets vastly outspent their Spanish counterparts in January.
As of 2023, Uefa began phasing in new FFP rules that will eventually limit clubs to spending 70 per cent of turnover over a rolling three-year period on wages, transfer and agent fees.
Many, however, believe that the new rules do not go far enough and do nothing to curb Premier League sides’ financial dominance.
La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1 officials will be among those pushing for greater financial regulation at Uefa level, claims David Díaz, head of sports law at international law firm Baker McKenzie.
“Tebas and the La Liga board consider their financial fair play regulations one of their greatest achievements,” he told Football Insider.
“They saved a lot of clubs from insolvency and they don’t want to have to do that again. The La Liga rules are one-size-fits-all and there will be no exceptions. Otherwise, Lionel Messi would still be at Barcelona.
“We have the most restrictive financial fair play regulations in Europe. Tebas has been trying to bring into focus for many months that there should be a common standard, which should be higher and tougher, and that it should be enforced strictly by Uefa.
“The system has been slightly enhanced but there is still room to find loopholes, as Chelsea have done with their eight-and-a-half-year contracts.
“This is a common position throughout Europe. Some are shyer about it, some more vocal, as is the case with the Tebas.
“The trend towards a more sustainable model is, in my view, unstoppable. The question is how quick the progress is.
“Covid’s impact has been nicely digested. The recession is making things a little bit unstable, but the path to recovery is clear. I don’t think that can be used as an argument against stricter financial regulation.
“Tebas’ criticism of the Premier League is not about its strength as a product. In the end, it’s about wanting to play with similar rules – some big clubs in Spain have a budget that is similar to a mid-table Championship club.
“As a business, football must be sustainable. But as a competition and a show, it must be with the same ground-level rules for everybody, and the more competitive the league is, the more it will be followed and the more sponsorship it attracts.
“So both sustainability and competitive balance are important, and, in my view, go hand in hand.
“It’s a matter of enforcement. Clubs like Chelsea are on Uefa’s watchlist and they will be scrutinised. A lot of English clubs are on the watchlist. They need to spend more to compete in that division.
“I think there will be a lot of support from leagues besides the Premier League to squash attempts to circumvent those rules.
“The Juventus case has rung a bell in Italy. France is pushing for this too, although not as vocally as La Liga. If they want to push for a CVC-style deal as we have in Spain, they really need to be sustainable from an investment point of view.
“I would not be surprised if they were calling upon Uefa to act. The Super League issue has brought the leagues closer to Uefa. These things will be going on privately.“
In other news, pundit claims Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang could be bombed out of Chelsea this week after new development.