Barcelona, Oct 7 (BNA): Barcelona’s chief executive said the club supports the Europa League to impose stricter financial controls on teams, as the European Football Association’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) model plays into the hands of state-backed clubs such as Paris Saint-Germain. and Manchester City.
UEFA launched the FFP regulations in 2009 with the aim of preventing clubs from incurring significant losses by spending on players even though the organization has relaxed the rules in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, scrapping the obligation to tie, Reuters reports.
The rules have come under scrutiny in the wake of Paris Saint-Germain’s transfer activities last summer, who signed Barcelona’s all-time top scorer Lionel Messi as well as Sergio Ramos, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Jorginho Wijnaldum on free transfers with huge wages to beat their rivals.
Meanwhile, Manchester City paid a record 100 million pounds ($135.80 million) to sign Jack Grealish from Aston Villa.
By contrast, Barcelona owe as much as 1.35 billion euros ($1.56 billion), and had to cut their wage bill this summer due to tougher financial regulations in LaLiga. It has been allocated a maximum budget of 98 million euros for this season, down significantly from 347 million last season.
“For us the Premier League was about creating a more attractive competition geared towards the issue of FFP. We have to think deeply about what happened this summer,” Ferran Riverter told a news conference on Wednesday.
“UEFA opens the door for clubs to inject money and spending ratios take off. Together with LaLiga, we believe in a more sustainable model. If UEFA continues down this path, it will favor government clubs while harming the Barcelona brand.”
UEFA did not immediately respond to Riverter’s comments.
Aleksander Ceferin, UEFA president, said last month that UEFA was looking at a new model of financial control, without elaborating.
“It is time to question the old methods and traditional procedures,” he said. “Now is the time to seriously work together to put in place a true direct cost control system.”
Britain’s The Times reported in August that UEFA was looking into setting a salary cap of 70% of club revenue with the ability to exceed the cap if a luxury tax was paid.
Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus are the only remaining supporters of the Super League, which was announced in April, but quickly collapsed after the withdrawal of the six English clubs and then Atletico Madrid, AC Milan and Inter Milan.