Have you heard the one about about "Uefa Financial Fair Play"?

Manchester City's Boardroom
after "UFP" was announced.

UEFA has "grabbed" headlines for imposing its "forward thinking" financial fairplay laws into place which is to ensure that clubs play "within their means". Twenty-three clubs have been affected by this first round of audits with their UEFA competition participation prize money being withheld until they can prove their finances are sustainable. Some bigger names DO make this list such as: Atletico Madrid, Malaga, Sporting, Rubin Kazan and Fenerbahce. For a complete list please read the link at the end of the article. 

You'd be forgiven if you have forgotten Mark Viduka's
Champions' League run with Leeds United. Who? Yeah.

As the opening graphic suggests I have a can of sass that I wish to open; however, I will first start by saying that UFF is a step in the right direction. 

One small step, not a giant leap for footy-kind however. Once again, I race ahead of myself. 

Over the years we have seen several big name clubs achieve financial pitfalls because of unsustainable spending (which often leads to book-cooking, auditing, penalties and disaster). The biggest examples that come to mind are Leeds United, Juventus, Portsmouth and Rangers. Leeds United and Rangers are perhaps the most explicit cases where a league contender (and winner) gets audited and tossed down several divisions (from which Leeds has yet to recover, ten years down the road; in 2002 they were in the semi-finals of the Champions' League). These types of financial decisions affect the whole league, the players and - most of all - the hard-working, big-paying fans who support the club and now have to watch the team that had played Valencia in the semis of the CF play (and lose) to fucking Brimbsy. Sustainability is good. Good for the environment, good for finances, good for football. 

500 million spent in four seasons is sustainable?
With no "legacy"-related revenues.
Ok, UEFA.

There is a big "but" in all this UFF talk however. If you look at the remainder of the names of the list you'll see a lot of minnows with irresponsible boardrooms who are just trying to compete in their leagues and make a splash in - at most - the Europa League. With teams afraid of the further steps of the UFF which might be unveiled in future seasons - including stiff financial penalties - smaller teams will be forced to stay small. While this might mean that "domestic" players get more development time, it does mean that a lot of mid-table teams with European aspirations might have to stay dreamers as they watch teams with endless loads of money be declared "sustainable". 

Which brings me to my main point. UFF actually helps the "worst" kind of football teams (in my opinion): the Oil-i-garch owned teams such as Chelsea FC, Manchester City, Shakhtar Donetsk and Paris St. Germain (plus all the other which might spring up as money laundering becomes more challenging under the Putin government). These teams will - in theory - always be sustainable because they almost literally have an endless supply of money (at least until dirty oil and natural gas becomes unfashionable). Now, these teams aren't entirely unaffected: (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/14482429) As this FAQ demonstrates, the books need to be balanced based on revenue generated by ticket-sales, shirt sales, tv deals, etc (which then cannot exceed the players coming in, salaries, etc). 

Ibrahimovich makes more in one month than some of the
clubs he will play against. Sustainable?

HOWEVER, two facts need to be recognized. First and foremost, these laws won't be fully enforced for three years, during which the Oil-i-garchs can spend another half a billion dollars on players (and investments which can generate "legit" income). Secondly, the penalties will be financial in nature and just as the oil companies which finance these clubs don't give a HOOT about their petty fines for destroying the environment, they are not likely to care about a typical UEFA slap-on-the-wrists (Racism fines at EUROS anyone??). Meanwhile, more mid-table, mid-income teams will feel the need to over-spend and cook their books in order to compete with these financially-bottomless juggernauts. 

If UFF is to actually accomplish the grand vision of preventing debt-driven clubs and instill "fairness" into UEFA competitions then it needs to do one of two big gestures: A) they need to actually set transfer and salary limits on teams entering it's big competitions (UCL and Europa League); B) they need to enforce this actively by KICKING OUT teams which step outside these tightly set boundaries; and C) UEFA really needs to establish a set of rules for the purchase and financing of football clubs so Manchester Cities do not keep occurring. 

You'll forgive me if I do not hold my breath. 

The link which inspired this rant: (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19557934)