UEFA’s new Financial Fair Play settlement provisions

In the last weeks, UEFA published its updated 2014 Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) procedural rules. These rules have been amended with a number of significant additions.

Of particular importance are Articles 15 and 16 regarding settlement which were not included in the original regulations. As a result, only months before the first break-even sanctioning decisions are announced a new procedure has been put in place for defaulting clubs. This blog looks at the key features of the new provisions and the potential issues.

Introduction

For an understanding of the UEFA Licensing and Financial Fair Play regulations, click here. Come the Spring, the CFCB will be taking decisions based on financial submissions provided by clubs to ensure they have ‘broken-even’ which effectively allows for a €45m acceptable loss. Previously, the CFCB published regulations setting out, among other things, its powers, remit and sanctioning capabilities. This document has now been updated and amended and now includes the ability for the CFCB to ‘settle’ with clubs who are in breach.

There are settlement procedures in a number of regulatory frameworks. For example, the European Commission has a settlement framework in place to incentivise companies who have breached the competition rules in cartel matters to admit to the breach. This translates into a quicker administrative process whilst also allowing the company in breach to receive a lesser sanction (usually a fine reduction). This (more lengthy) settlement procedure is set out here. In contrast, UEFA’s settlement procedure is set out in the two provisions below.

The New Procedural Regulations