Re: City & FFP (continued)
Here is the Marcotti article:
Some 20 years ago, a fresh-faced Belgian lawyer named Jean-Louis Dupont took on the establishment and changed the course of football history. We remember him for the Bosman case, which ultimately granted players free agency and eliminated limits on the number of European Union players a club could field or sign. It is hard to overstate the impact of the Bosman ruling, whether it is in terms of globalising the game, increasing the gap between the top leagues and the rest of the Continent or giving footballers more of a say in their professional lives.
Bosman gave Dupont superhero status in some quarters and he was enlisted a while back in the legal battle to challenge Financial Fair Play.
A Belgian court is considering the appeal against Uefa and the Belgian FA on the grounds that FFP, by limiting investment, is violating European competition law and that whatever exemptions Uefa may call upon do not apply. He has been joined in the lawsuit by a range of plaintiffs, including agents and the 15,000-strong Manchester City Supporters Club, an organisation representing City fans from 168 nations.
The goal is to have the issue referred to the European Court of Justice, which has the power to strike down FFP. Obviously these legal battles move only slightly faster than molten lava, which is why Dupont asked the court on Friday for a provisional measure that would effectively suspend the further implementation of FFP. Effectively, it would leave the break-even requirements at present levels (£37 million over two years) rather than tightening them over time to £22 million over three years, which is FFP’s goal.
The concept is sound. He is telling the courts: “You don’t know if FFP is legal because you haven’t explored the issue further. We don’t believe it is, we understand it will take you some time to decide the matter, but, in the meantime, please suspend the process.”
Dupont’s supporters are not concerned by the fact that many see him fighting a losing battle. After all, no one gave Jean-Marc Bosman a chance either. Yet Dupont fought his corner, persevered and made history. This will be no different, they say. But, in fact, whatever your thoughts on FFP, this is very different.
For a start, the legislation that Bosman struck down was longstanding and antiquated. FFP, on the other hand, is new. And that matters, because the actors who put FFP into place — not just Uefa, but also the majority of European clubs and the European Commission that gave it the green light — are still in power. That means they are more invested in it than the powers-that-be back in the mid-1990s, who inherited regulations limiting player movement and sort of took it for granted.
Just as important, though, is the issue of whether Dupont is on the right side of history. And here you get the sense that the momentum is on the other side with a realpolitik argument based on stakeholders.
In 1995, it was football clubs, many of them with wealthy profiteering owners and enjoying the benefits of protectionism and state subsidies, both naked and veiled, versus players, most of whom earned a fraction of what they do now. Today, it is the vast majority of clubs and the game’s governing bodies versus fans of Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain and some agents.
It is not that they do not have a valid argument, but given that City themselves say that they are very close to breaking even, you wonder how they will feel about FFP once they join the ranks of the profitable clubs. Equally, there is a just as valid counterargument to be made. You can argue that it restricts investment in the form of PSG and City and you would be correct, but there are also plenty of owners who would not be investing in football were it not for FFP and the fact is that it reduces costs and makes profitability more viable.
That is why it is hard to see how Dupont can win this time. It may have been different if he could find a way to argue that FFP restricts workers (footballers) and their ability to make a living. But with the plaintiffs he represents, there is much less of an appetite for the kind of laissez-faire argument he is pushing.
