View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE UEFA’s Financial Fair Play provided by Anglia Ruskin Research Online Regulations: the devil is in the detail by Tom Serby1 Introduction ing in the top divisions of the European Bayern München FC, Manchester United countries had grown over the previous FC, Chelsea FC and Arsenal FC.7 “The devil is in the detail, and we’re try- five years by an average annual amount ing to get to grips with this devil…”2, the of 5.6% (more than ten times the average The reason for the presence of many words of Michel Platini, President of the rate of growth of the economies of these English football clubs in this list is that Union of European Football Associations countries), to a total of € 13.2 billion. The entrance into the English Premiership (“UEFA”), in August 2013, commenting total revenues (excluding transfer fees) of League (“EPL”) is considered the most lu- on UEFA’s Financial Fair Play Regula- the “big five” leagues doubled from € 4.2 crative move in world sport, with the latest tions (“the Regulations”). The intention billion to € 8.4 billion (reflecting partly the television rights for the period 2013-2016 of the Regulations is simple: an attempt to increased value of the broadcasting deals concluded by the Premiership on behalf of restore financial prudence in the operation secured for television rights). these elite 20 clubs at £ 3.018 billion, a rise of the biggest European football clubs. of 70% over the previous deal. Wealthy The details of how the Regulations can Meanwhile, Deloitte’s published fig- individuals, “sugar-daddy ownership” in achieve this are complex. This article will ures for the first decade of the twenty- Lang’s phrase8, tempted by the prestige explain the “devilish detail” through an first century5 show that, while there has the EPL offers, buy up clubs, and spend analysis of how UEFA, for the first time been steady growth in income terms of extraordinary amounts of money to buy in 2014, begins the process of enforce- the top flight clubs in Europe, aggregate success. It has been reported that Sheikh ment of the Regulations. The article will net losses of these clubs has tripled since Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu consider why the Regulations were intro- 2007 to reach € 1.7 billion, with 63% of Dhabi has invested over five years £ 1 bil- duced, the likely impact they will have on the clubs operating at a loss in 2011. The lion in Manchester City FC, just slightly top flight European football clubs and the major contributing factor to the losses has more than Roman Abramovich, the Rus- likelihood of a legal challenge to them. been the increased spending by clubs bid- sian oligarch, has invested in Chelsea FC ding against one another to attract a small since 2003. Wealthy owners of clubs in the global pool of the most talented players, league below the Premiership, the Foot- Background to FFP Regulations in an attempt to engineer success on the ball League Championship, go to simi- pitch. Muller, Lammett and Hovemann6 larly extraordinary lengths to buy a place Financial overspending by sports’ clubs is provide an excellent analysis of the “rat in the wealthiest league in world football; not limited to football clubs, but the most race” engaged in by the top clubs all aspir- a good example being Cardiff City FC. egregious examples of financial reckless- ing to partake in the most lucrative com- Cardiff obtained promotion into the EPL ness over the years have occurred within petitions by buying success in the shape at the end of the 2012-2013 season at a the ranks of top flight European football of exponentially growing transfer fees. huge cost. Accounts filed at Companies clubs. The collapse of one of Europe’s pre- Gambling on success in this way inevita- House for the year ending 31 May 2013 eminent football clubs Glasgow Rangers bly produces losers as well as winners in a reported an operating loss of £ 30.9 mil- FC in 2012 illustrates that no football club financial sense. lion up from £ 13 million in the previous is too big to suffer financial disaster. Com- season. Wages and salaries accounted for menting on this case a select committee of Although sporting fiscal irresponsibility £ 27 million compared to £ 18.5 million in the House of Commons, the lower House is not unique to European football, it has the previous year. The BBC reported Car- of the UK Parliament, commented that it become in recent years a growing problem diff’s Chairman Mehmet Dalman admitt- was “a powerful example of the excesses in the sport. In April 2014, it was revealed ting that Malaysian businessman Vincent of professional clubs in competing with in the Global Sports Salaries Survey 2014, Tan had invested £ 150 million in the club one another, and the consequences for compiled by the Sportingintelligence since 2010.9 their community when mismanagement website and ESPN The Magazine, that the leads to financial collapse”.3 English Premiership club Manchester City The Regulations’ objective is to bring fi- FC now tops the global wages league for nancial order back into European football. For decades, top flight European football athletes, with the average first team player has experienced the curious phenomenon at the club now paid £ 5.3 million a year of rising income based on the sport’s grow- (£ 102,653 a week). Second on the list are Theoretical justifications for the FFP ing popularity, coupled with increasing the New York Yankees, and also appearing Regulations financial losses. According to the UEFA on the list of the top twelve highest paying Benchmarking Report for the financial wage earners are the major European foot- Muller, Lammett and Hovemann10 sum- year 20114, the income of the clubs play- ball clubs Real Madrid FC, Barcelona FC, marise that ““la crème de la crème” of 6 June 2014 © Nolot European football includes a string of League clubs have to pay football credi- on large scale cash injections to buy new clubs with significantly loss-making busi- tors before other creditors or face expul- (and better) players “restoring efficient ness models that in “normal” industries, sion from the League (which would nor- managerial incentives” will result in a where profitability is the criterion for sur- mally lead to the club’s dissolution). In its better brand of management. “The time for vival, would fall into bankruptcy”. They latest report, the committee recommended repeated managerial moral hazard and refer to the practice of wealthy business- bringing forward legislation to outlaw rent-seeking games in European football men bankrolling topflight football clubs as the rule which it branded “immoral”, but is over if FFP comes into action. Foot- “financial doping”. They argue that there has recommended delaying any new law ball managers will have to concentrate on is a theoretical justification for a sporting until the Financial Fair Play rules, which productive efforts to develop the football regulatory body (in this case UEFA) to have been introduced into English football business as a whole and in a sustainable step in and control the extent of financial (based on, but a variation of, the Regula- way instead of focusing on “payroll-gam- aid being used to buy sporting success. tions), have been allowed to work and are bling” in a sort of “football casino” .”21 They argue that allowing sporting success tested. to be controlled by off the pitch compe- tition to attract the richest “sugar daddy” Football’s regulators were keen, therefore, The Regulations: in brief is a violation of sporting ethical standards to bring in rules to attempt to curb the in- and the spirit of the competition. creasing overspending by clubs; but critics The Regulations were introduced in 2011 have been quick to assert that the Regula- as an extension to UEFA’s existing club Dietl, Franck and Lang11 cite some of the tions infringe European competition law. licensing system. The principal objectives characteristics specific to the football in- Further to the well-known ground break- of the Regulations are defined in art. 2.2 dustry that tend to increase expenditure ing decision of the Court of Justice of the as follows: by wealthy owners above and beyond European Union (as it is now known) in what would be the case assuming rational Bosman16, rules and regulations of sports “a to improve the economic and finan- behaviour and a profit-maximising clubs governing bodies must comply, where the cial capability of the clubs, increasing (what Franck calls the phenomenon of rules have an economic impact which ob- their transparency and credibility; overinvestment through revenue dissipa- viously the Regulations do, with European b to place the necessary importance on tion): a strong connection between invest- Union law, for example competition law, the protection of creditors and to en- ment in players and on field success; an contained in art. 101 and 102 of the Treaty sure that clubs settle their liabilities “additional exogenous prize” (e.g., UEFA on the Functioning of the European Un- with players, social/tax authorities Champions League qualification); and a ion. and other clubs punctually; system of promotion and relegation with c to introduce more discipline and ra- a large financial impact attached. In an attempt to analyse the probable ef- tionality in club football finances; fect of the Regulations on competition, d to encourage clubs to operate on the Franck says that the term “arms race” is the Regulations have been the subject of basis of their own revenues; not really strong enough to describe the several academic economic studies.