UEFA Financial Fair Play: an overview of the clubs’ settlements

The news recently that 10 clubs¹ including a number of high profile teams had entered in to settlement agreements with UEFA over Financial Fair Play (FFP) break-even breaches, did not appear garner the same media interest as this time last year when high profile clubs like Manchester City and PSG were sanctioned.

The clubs in the FFP spotlight this time round were AS Monaco FC, AS Roma, Beşiktaş JK, FC Internazionale Milan, FC Krasnodar, FC Lokomotiv Moscow and Sporting Clube de Portugal, FC Rostov, Kardemir Karabükspor and PFC CSKA Sofia.

In February 2015, four other clubs (Hapoel Tel-Aviv, Hull City, Panathinaikos FC and Ruch Chorzów) also entered into settlement agreements with UEFA. There have therefore been 14 settlement decisions entered into this season coupled with nine clubs last season (Bursaspor, Rubin, PSG, Galatasary, Manchester City, Anzhi, Zenit, Sofia & Trabzonspor) meaning 23 settlement decisions to date. The details of each settlement agreement can be accessed here.²

For a detailed analysis of UEFA’s settlement provisions, click here.³ In summary, UEFA’s regulations give its Club Financial Control Body (CFBC) Investigatory Chamber the power to ‘settle’ its case with potentially offending clubs before the matter is referred to the CFCB Adjudicatory Chamber. This allows a degree of negotiation between UEFA and the relevant club as to their punishments and which has to date avoided any club being banned from playing in UEFA club competition. See my previous blog⁴ on the settlement sanctions imposed on, for example, Manchester City and PSG this time last year.