Northern British side Everton gave up precious points in the English Premier League (EPL) late in 2023 due to a serious lack of financial fair play. Everton fans howled at the moon and the organization in protest, to no avail. But Man City, that wrecking ball of a team, is surely no home for fair play either.
That´s not to say that the Sky-Blue juggernaut, universal conquerors under coach Pep Guardiola, don´t help their fallen foes back to their feet sometimes. It means that the Manchester giant is now under investigation for 115 breaches. These include false financial reports and noncompliance with the league probe. On the table sit a huge number of points for Man City to potentially lose.
The charges stretch back 14 years. Coach Pep vows that his club is clean. Even if British football´s Goliath should somehow fall, he says he´ll stick around. All the same, his contract´s set to expire soon. The hearing date for these bad boys is set for late fall of 2024.
What is ´Financial Fair Play´?
The movement behind it all, called ´Financial Fair Play´ (FFP), was kicked off by UEFA in 2009. That was soon after the European governing body noticed that more than half of the 665 European clubs under its watch had incurred losses during the previous year.
Naturally, European teams and leagues have grown by leaps and bounds economically over the last three decades. At the same time, the beautiful game´s governing organs dreamed of ways to guarantee some semblance of equality and fairness.
After all, how could minnows from the north or east of the continent ever possibly compete with Bayern Munich, Man City, or Real Madrid, and their untold millions? Financial Fair Play was designed for clubs not to act irresponsibly with their hard-earned cash. They can´t overspend and record heavy losses or enter into that dreaded state known as administration (i.e., bankruptcy).
Listen Up Clubs: Don´t Go €60 Million In the Red!
FFP rules specifically say clubs can only rack up losses of 60 million Euros over three years. So what happens when the small fries are trying to behave and compete, while the behemoths are busy throwing their money around and toying with up to 115 penalties?
No wonder the Everton Toffee fans were up in arms. The authorities focused hard on their relatively small club, ending in a 10-point slap. Everton skirted ´Profitability and Sustainability Rules´ (PSR). Yet the same urgency wasn´t applied to unveiling the wrongs at one of England´s, and the world´s, richest clubs. The idea of ´blue blood´ doesn´t only apply to England´s royal family.
According to The Guardian, ´leaked´ internal documents and emails showed that Man City´s Abu Dhabi-based owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, handled the Etihad sponsorship deal by himself. By the way, that was behind UEFA´s back. In late 2018, Der Speigel came forward with these damages. That turned up the heat on the club and forced the league to dive deeper.
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