Financial Fair Play how many times we have heard this term being used in the last 2 to 3 years. Every time there has been a huge transfer this has been the subject of discussion from Ronaldo (Madrid) to Torres (Chelsea).
Objective of the FFP(Financial Fair Play)If you want to read or else skip this and move ahead.
These regulations aim:
a) to further promote and continuously improve the standard of all aspects of
football in Europe and to give continued priority to the training and care of
young players in every club;
b) to ensure that a club has an adequate level of management and
organisation;
c) to adapt clubs’ sporting infrastructure to provide players, spectators and
media representatives with suitable, well-equipped and safe facilities;
d) to protect the integrity and smooth running of the UEFA club competitions;
e) to allow the development of benchmarking for clubs in financial, sporting,
legal, personnel, administrative and infrastructure-related criteria throughout
Europe.
2 Furthermore, they aim to achieve financial fair play in UEFA club competitions
and in particular:
a) to improve the economic and financial capability of the clubs, increasing their
transparency and credibility;
b) to place the necessary importance on the protection of creditors by ensuring
that clubs settle their liabilities with players, social/tax authorities and other
clubs punctually;
c) to introduce more discipline and rationality in club football finances;
d) to encourage clubs to operate on the basis of their own revenues;
e) to encourage responsible spending for the long-term benefit of football;
f) to protect the long-term viability and sustainability of European club football.
We only talk about the big spenders what about clubs who are sitting on prized assets like Udinese (Sanchez), Santos (Neymar), Palermo (Pastore) etc. Suddenly all this players are quoting they want to leave the club for bigger clubs. I think they only have say minimum of 2-4 transfer windows to get their sporting and financial goals achieved. These clubs will not be able to sell a Pastore for 50millions EUR in the coming years. Even the Abu Dhabi Oil Machine cannot buy these players. The Owners dependency will also be reviewed under FFP. So no more Mr Berlussconi or Mr Ambramovich cant bailout their respective clubs if they fail to meet thier sporting goals.
All the players mentioned above if not sold in the next 2 transfer windows would be available at a serious discount later and the owners of their respective clubs know that. I believe in this situation guys like Galliani(AC Milan Chairman) can be vital to negotiate a good transfer. See last season what he did with Imbrahamovich, Robinho etc. I wont be surprised if they snatch Kaka at a discount from Madrid this summer or a Marek Hamsik.
Clubs like Chelsea need to be wary of the situation. Owner cant be sacking coaches and paying them huge compensation packages. They roughly paid over 50 million GBP in compensation to managers alone since the Russian tookover. It is one thing for a club to be over ambitious and there is one to be treated as a FIFA playstation game. What I fear for Chelsea is that Abrahamovich will loose interest at this rate if they dont win the coveted UEFA Champions League soon. The highest wagers in EPL is Chelsea which is again a very scary situation in terms of FFP. Who will they buy in this summer linked to Lukaku, Neymar, Modric, Sneider etc. all these will come for not less than 20-25 million GBP. If Chelsea dont get their act together they would surely be missing out on the Europe berth once UEFA starts disqualifying teams on FFP.
So it will surely be DEATH OF MILLIONS for teams like Chelsea for not qualifying under FFP and Teams like Santos, Udinese, Palermo etc if not cashed on prized possesions.
Daniyal Patel
daniyalpatel@gmail.com
Twitter: DaniyalP
