Sevco was rocked by some bad news last night, news which has been underreported in the press and who’s total impact is underappreciated.
Lille has suffered a hammering at the hands of UEFA over their past violations of Financial Fair Play.
This has hit them at a time when they are sitting on a major transfer surplus, which the Scottish media thinks they can spend on players, including Alfredo Morelos.
This is not the case. Lille has been told to get the spending under control, and whilst they will sign the Gent striker Johnathan David for £27 million it seems highly unlikely that they will go for the Sevco striker.
In spite of some nonsensical reporting, Lille is the only club interested in the player.
One newspaper offered the embarrassing opinion last week that it’s only his Colombian nationality which stops him being a target for Real Madrid and Barcelona … did you know both of those eminent institutions had such blatantly discriminatory signing policies?
No, neither did I. Apparently we’re wrong.
Lille’s failure to follow FFP and UEFA’s response to it will have further intensified pressure on the Ibrox club to start putting their financial affairs in order.
The governing bodies may have lost a major case against Manchester City recently, but they are not about to ditch their flagship policy on the back of a single reversal. As a consequence of City’s win, UEFA will probably tweak the rules in a way that the Ibrox club and other violators will not like at all.
And of course, the Lille case and its possible impacts will be felt at Ibrox if they do not buy Morelos. As no-one else looks to be interested, there’s a chance that Ibrox’s resident ned will still be in the building when the window shuts … and if he is their losses this year are going to be gargantuan.
UEFA will be watching, and even though there’s a temporary suspension on enforcement for his year Sevco will simply not get away with buying players and spending millions when other clubs are making cuts. Do not think this can continue indefinitely.
Things are changing in European football, and Sevco continues to defy financial gravity.
As I keep on writing, that will have consequences.
It may be that the first of them has arrived already, and not even at Ibrox itself.
Sevco continues to live in “interesting times.”
Which, as most of you will know, isn’t a good thing.
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