In an interview with the Daily Mirror, Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany has spoken out against UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules, insisting they do nothing to prevent clubs from being badly run and falling in to debt, but instead, serve only to protect the status quo, ensuring that the big teams remain at the top while other clubs can no longer invest to bridge the divide.
Kompany uses the example of Manchester City and his own experiences in English football. When he arrived on these shores, the traditional ‘top four’ seemed unbreakable and it took the considerable wealth of Manchester City’s owners to break the stranglehold they had on the Premier League.
‘Just who is FFP protecting? For me, it is protecting those few clubs who were already geared up to be successful.
It’s a point I’ve hit upon myself in the past. The nature of FFP means turnover is king, but in football, a higher turnover comes from established success and playing in the Champions League. Without that, the deck is already stacked against you, but when you’re also prevented from investing, you’ve already lost.
Without a billionaire sugar-daddy there to write-off your debts, there’s risk to such levels of spending, sure. But from the day Sky Sports bought into the English game and the revenues starting spiralling upwards, football has been business first, sport second. I don’t like it any more than the next fan, but that’s the reality of the modern game and while ever the game is dominated by money and run in this way, the only way the top clubs can be challenged is the way Chelsea and Manchester City did – with heavy investment.
Does Cellino plan to cash-in before cashing out?