Arsenal transfer news isn't actually always what it might be
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By Tony Attwood
The fines being imposed on clubs are, within the context of football, not enormous, but they are there, and it seems the authorities are perfectly willing to increase the fines for subsequent offences.
Although it is perhaps one of the great ironies of football journalism that while Newcastle, Chelsea and Aston Villa have been fined for breaking individual European football financial rules, there is still not a word about any penalty being imposed on Manchester City for over 110 breaches of regulations. As ever, we wait.
Indeed, so gross is the difference between how Manchester City is being treated and the treatments handed out to Newcastle, Chelsea and Aston Villa, that questions are now being asked as to the suitability of, and lack of bias within, the English football authorities for handling its own affairs. Thus, for the first time the whole question of whether a single association can actually act independently to look after its own financial regulations is being questioned. There may be more on this later…
Meanwhile Manchester City march on with the charges still hanging over them and the threat by Manchester City management to bring down the whole of English football if the charges are pursued any further or any punishments handed out. But lesser infringements are being settled.
The fines handed out to Chelsea and Aston Villa are beyond doubt lenient given that this is the second season running Villa had been caught out. And there is a worry that this is setting a precedent for a fine against ManC that is so low, they won’t even bother to fight it.
Newcastle’s specific offence is the breaking of sustainability regulations, which is somewhat different from the fines given to Aston V and Chelsea, which were for overspending two years running. I am not sure if any club has ever been found guilty of overspending three years running, but if either of these clubs are, I suspect the fines are going to rise quite a bit, but might still be low enough for the clubs to consider infractions worthwhile.
These fines are handed out by the Club Financial Control Body, which found that Newcastle broke both the football earnings rule and the separate squad cost rules. A further £6m fine must be paid if they breach either set of regulations again within the next five years.
The Newcastle case was particularly interesting in that it is at least one of the first times, if not the first time, that the League introduced the word “deliberate” into the charge. This is thought to be because previously accused clubs have defended themselves by claiming that their overspend was an accounting error. However,Uefa can only rule on club finances where the club played in a Uefa competition, and so since Newcastle did not qualify for a European competition in the forthcoming season, they can’t be touched in that regard (although the Premier League itself could raise itself from its persistent stupour and have a look).
However these fines come because the clubs were in the Champions League for the period assessed. Andit should be noted that the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules have now been scrapped and will be replaced in the coming season with a version of much stricter rules, which will be in turn replaced by a version of sustainability rules that are much closer to Uefa’s regulations for clubs playing in their competitions.
In the new rules (to which Arsenal are of course already beholden as they have been qualifying for the Champions League in the last four years), the spending on players can’t be more than 70% of revenue for European qualifiers, but now will be 85% in the Premier League, where the Football Earnings Rules do not count player and other asset sales as part of their revenue.
This meant that Newcastle’s attempted manoeuvre around the regulations by selling their ground to a subsidiary company of the club owners was not approved for Uefa accounting purposes. Which means the club could do it (and they did), but it didn’t affect how Uefa saw their accounts in terms of what we used to call “financial fair play”. Uefa has said Newcastle are working with them to resolve the matters by paying financial penalties for the next three years, and not breaking any more rules.
Now this is rather interesting since Newcastle is one of those clubs owned by one of the oil-rich Arab nations “Public Investment Fund”, which has been seen as a way around the rules. And Manchester City might now well be taking note. Villa were fined about £20m for but most of that is suspended, pending any further rule breaks despite this being the second year running they have been caught out.
Thus the Premier League does remain something of a soft touch, and that is worrying given that ManC still seem to be running rings around the League’s financial committee.
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Arsenal transfer news isn't actually always what it might be
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