After seeing Paris Saint-Germain spend 222 million Euros on Neymar as well as bringing in Kylian Mbappé on loan where they’ll pay 200 million Euros next year to keep him, every sane soccer fan in the world wondered just how PSG was getting away with this. Theoretically, there were rules about spending money in accordance to revenue so teams don’t fall into financial trouble.
UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules have been seen as a bit of a joke where teams seem to easily find loopholes to spend whatever they want for new players. One of those loopholes is overvaluing sponsorship to a point where a team is able to spend whatever money they want and that is what UEFA is investigating PSG for.
PSG, owned by Qatar Sports Investments, has been accused of “financial doping” by overvaluing sponsorship revenue to avoid violating Financial Fair Play rules.
What does this mean if PSG is found guilty? This is where people view Financial Fair Play rules as a joke. Technically, those who violate FFP rules are in danger of being excluded from UEFA competitions like the Champions League or Europa League. But for the most part, it’s just smaller teams who seem to be excluded. Bigger teams, like Manchester City and PSG, are just fined millions and PSG had already been fined 60 million Euros in 2014. So the penalty for teams who spend too much money is to fine them lots of money?
So I honestly don’t think it matters if PSG is found guilty or not. At worst, they’re getting a fine but they already made a mockery of Financial Fair Play rules by spending a total of 422 million Euros in a year for two players and trying to make it look good by delaying half of that payment into the next year. We already know this is a joke, it’s time to see if UEFA sees that too.
