UEFA’s attempts to create a level financial playing field have a long history, but so far have not been comprehensive enough to be effective.
Teams like Chelsea made their way round limits on revenue to wage limits by producing a loan army that could be sold off for profit. Manchester City simply inflated sponsorship deals to make it seem like they were making more money than we were.
Martyn Ziegler of the Times is today reporting that European football’s governing body is planning a new rule to come in alongside these ratios that will place a hard cap on how much any club can spend in a single season. They need to come up with a rule that will satisfy the EU’s fair competition laws, but it sounds like something is in the pipeline.
The current plan of the Financial Sustainability Regulations is to reduce the percentage of revenues clubs can spend on wages. The fear is that will reinforce English clubs’ dominance at the top as they have the most revenue and therefore can spend more on wages. Chelsea’s insane spending of the last year dwarfs what was being spent by whole leagues across the continent, and really pointed out how ineffective those measures are on their own.
By having a hard limit on the maximum wages any club can pay, the theory is that a level playing field can be created.
Of course there will always be ways around it, but one can see the appeal for other countries of creating a more equitable environment – which will actually create more entertaining European competition for all.
