I didn't hazard myself to make a translation because some "specialized terms" in law language could be mistranslated.
According to Google translation (not the more reliable, i know) :
The Belgian courts, seized by a player's agent and fans of PSG and Manchester City, declared itself incompetent to judge the compatibility of the financial fair play (FPF) with the European law, has one learned Friday from concordant sources.
In a judgment delivered Thursday, the Brussels Court of Appeal "decided that the Belgian courts were not competent", as at first instance, told AFP a spokesman for the court.
It also did not consider it necessary to question European justice on the legality of financial fair play.
"As the court did not examine the lawfulness of the FPF in the light of EU law in particular, its decision in no way leads to the conclusion of the validity of the regulation," responded in a statement the two plaintiffs' lawyers, Martin Hissel and Jean-Louis Dupont. The latter is at the origin of the "Bosman judgment" in 1995, which liberalized the transfer market.
According to these two lawyers, the court found that their clients were only "indirect" victims of financial fair play and thus declared themselves "territorially incompetent".
"It would be necessary to attack UEFA at its seat and to have the question examined by a Swiss judge, but we would no longer be in front of a community judge," Hissel told AFP, as he thinks "it is not a coincidence" if the European football federation has settled in Switzerland.
He emphasized studying the possibility of an appeal in cassation.
Established in 2011, then groomed several times, the financial fair play imposes on European football clubs that their expenses are entirely covered by their own revenues - with a certain flexibility however - under penalty of going from simple blame to 'excluding competitions.
Objective: to clean up finances to promote the long-term viability of the football economy.
The plaintiffs' lawyers argue that financial fair play goes against EU competition law in that it restricts investment, which is prohibited.
Indeed, with this rule, an owner - such as Qatar's sovereign fund with PSG or that of Abu Dhabi with Manchester City - can not inject his funds as he sees fit.
According to them, the rule has also had the effect of "fossilizing the structure of the market" in favor of already established clubs, those with the largest incomes, such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus of Turin or Bayern Munich, to the detriment "new entrants".
The European Commission, guardian of competition rules in the EU, granted in 2012 its support to the FPF by signing a joint declaration with Michel Platini, then president of UEFA.
According to a spokesperson contacted by AFP, European Commission considers "that financial fair play can be a useful tool in the context of good financial governance".
