Owners of top clubs will temporarily be permitted by Uefa’s financial fair play rules to put more money into their clubs, to cover increased losses caused by football’s shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Uefa announced a series of “emergency measures” to acknowledge that clubs competing in the Champions League and Europa League, who must comply with FFP “break-even” limits, cannot do so this season because of drastic losses caused by the shutdown.
The principles accept that clubs can make losses greater than the permitted €30m over a rolling three-year period, and that owners can cover those losses. Uefa stressed, however, that it was still committed to encouraging good financial management by clubs, and the measures were aimed only at “neutralising the adverse effects of the pandemic”: lost ticket income while matches are played behind closed doors, and the potentially major loss of some TV, commercial and sponsorship income.
The current rules, intended to encourage clubs to live within the money they make and not pay excessive wages to players, limit clubs’ maximum losses to €30m over a three-year period, as long as €25m of that loss is covered by an owner. The new measures state that the current 2020 financial year will not be assessed at all under FFP procedures, and will instead be rolled up into 2021, and the two years assessed together as a single financial period.
Uefa sources confirmed that clubs would be allowed losses in excess of €30m as long as they show this was caused by falls in revenues because of the shutdown. Clubs will be able to cope with their own increased losses however they responsibly can, including by owners putting money in, either in loans or shares. Uefa said these emergency measures were intended to “give clubs more time to quantify and account for unanticipated loss of revenues”.
The umbrella organisation Football Supporters Europe, which comprises Uefa-recognised fans’ groups across the continent including in Britain, has called for supporters to be fully engaged in processes for financial and governance reform after the crisis. Describing football’s structures as “flawed, unfair and unsustainable”, FSE said: “There can be no ‘return to normal’.”
The FSE statement, signed by England’s Football Supporters’ Association, Supporters Direct Scotland and other groups from across Europe, described fans as “the lifeblood of the game” and objected to artificial crowd noise played by broadcasters over matches behind closed doors.
“Empty stadia are a direct consequence of a public health crisis that has impacted every single one of us, and the absence of fans cannot be compensated for by a computer simulation aimed at the amusement of television audiences,” the statement said.