The European Football Association (UEFA) on Thursday approved reforms to financial fair play rules to be more flexible but more targeted, allowing clubs to increase their deficits but preventing them from wasting all their income on transfer fees and salaries.
Sharjah 24 – AFP:
The European Football Association (UEFA) on Thursday reformed Financial Fair Play rules to be more flexible but more targeted, allowing clubs to increase their deficits but preventing them from wasting all their income on salaries and transfer fees.
As was expected, the Executive Committee of the Continental Football Association amended the budget rules, which have been in effect since 2010, in search of a balance between spending and revenues for clubs, under pain of punishment that may amount to exclusion from continental participation.
“The main innovation will be the introduction of difference cost controls,” Slovenian UEFA president Aleksandar Ceferin said Thursday, to be implemented gradually to avoid excessive spending on salaries.
The European Union moved away from the strict accounting logic that it adopted in the early stages of the financial fair play rule, by doubling the allowable deficit over three years for each club to become 60 million euros, so that it may reach 90 million during the same period for the club that enjoys “financial health.” good”.
But at the same time, the continental football body has approved a watered-down form of the “salary cap” system that is widely applied in American professional leagues such as the NBA, but given that it is impossible to implement it with the same strictness with 55 national associations with legislation different from one to the other.
Clubs will have to set the salaries of their players and coaches, transfer fees and agent commissions at 70% of their income, starting from the 2025-2026 season.