Just when Sevco fans thought the flap over Financial Fair Play had died down, along come two clubs who, together, have reignited it; Manchester City and Paris St Germain. Their conduct has seen UEFA re-engage with the subject, and for interesting reasons … UEFA didn’t launch investigations on its own, those clubs have been reported to the governing body.
PSG were reported twice; first by our German opponents from last season, Monchengladbach, and they, along with City, have been the subject of an official complaint from Javier Tebas, the President of La Liga.
This is a major step, and one that should worry the Ibrox club.
PSG are under official investigation.
UEFA says Manchester City are currently not.
But the fact is, the eyes at UEFA are wide open now, and more changes are going to come.
The immediate upshot of it is that clubs or associations which make complaints about this will be taken seriously.
They don’t even have to be clubs who are going up against the teams those complaints are about.
The Spanish FA’s teams do not have to concern themselves with Manchester City or PSG in the Groups, and they may not go up against them in the course of the tournament; they complained anyway, and whilst in City’s case it might not lead to sanctions it will almost certainly result in greater scrutiny.
Only the truly foolish could still have it in their heads that UEFA is not serious about these rules.
They distort the whole football marketplace; rising prices are going to kill smaller clubs eventually, pricing them out of a transfer market that has gone insane. The EPL TV deal has already skewed the football system across Europe.
The integrity of its premier competitions is a paramount consideration for UEFA.
They have maintained the Champions Route into the Groups of the Champions League and now the Europa League winners get a guaranteed spot too … the governing body might have bowed the knee on the big four leagues, but that’s as far as they’ll go. Changes which alter how national association’s performances affect the co-efficient of clubs will have a drastic impact on the tournaments of the future, and those will, in many ways, be positive for Celtic.
The allowable debt over a three year Champions League examination period is £5 million, with an allowable sum of £30 million if it comes from the club’s owners, in the form of recapitalisation. This is why some Sevconites cling to the idea of a share issue. We do not know what their debts were for last season; they would have been high. The club has failed even to submit audited accounts thus far, which is a heavy violation of FFP rules.
Sevco has not qualified for a European license in the past five years; the SFA waived them through in spite of their gross failure to meet the criteria in the assessment period of 2013-14 and 2014-15. In addition to last season’s losses is the amount they’ve spent preparing for this campaign, where their European adventure ended in ignominy and disgrace.
The last thing they wanted was a major FFP story breaking in the media.
Because it focusses attention on them again, and their lack of accounts for the 2016-17 campaign. In March 2016 the club had debts, on the books, of over £25 million and had posted £6 million and £7 million in annual losses for the two accounting years prior to it.
They don’t have a hope in Hell of meeting FFP, and it will only take one club, and not even necessarily one they’ll be facing or have disenfranchised, from reporting that.
If they are granted a license next season any club they play will be fully entitled to ask where the financing for their squad is coming from, as will any club in Scotland who missed out on one.
This issue is not going away; Sevco has to submit audited accounts for the last financial year by the end of October.
Their accountants will be sweating those details right now.
The hole in the finances will be enough to give the clubs directors a nosebleed … and it will cause more than a few sleepless nights at the SFA.
It should.