Financial Fair Play in football may disappear. As reported by the Gazzetta, UEFA is studying the possibility of changing the way clubs can spend the money they own. Everything would be motivated by the economic hardships derived from the pandemic. The change would benefit, in principle, the clubs with more possibilities, since it would go from the culture of “spend as much as you earn” to that of “spend what you need without wasting”. That is to say, teams like PSG or Manchester City would set the limits themselves, not UEFA.
The current financial Fair Play system has been practically frozen since the coronavirus crisis began. For many specialists, it no longer makes much sense at the moment as the entities have lost part of their television and box office income. The red numbers have made it unfeasible to clean up the accounts, even balancing the spending on transfers. Moreover, the losses of the clubs, as announced by Agnelli, president of the ECA, is around 8,000 million. That is why UEFA is studying a change in the regulation that could be confirmed this Thursday by Aleksander Ceferin.
Financial Fair Play was created by Platini and Infantino in the 2010s, which has greatly slowed down the most powerful clubs from going to market. since they had to spend the same as they entered. Any change to this current regulation must be designed in accordance with the laws of the European Union and requires the approval of the European Parliament.
The fact that the wealthiest clubs can spend more would “spread” their money among the rest of the teams. Of course, it would greatly weaken the rivals in the sporting aspect, another of the issues for which Fair Play was created at the time. The possibility of setting salary limits is also discussed, although the European Union does not allow them (unlike what happens in the North American sports leagues). There is another option that would be to introduce a luxury tax, something that already happens with other European products that move large sums of money. In any case, UEFA will change the economic and financial system and could implement it from 2022.