Rammyblues
Well-Known Member
I know there is a long thread on FFPR in the other forum and if mods feel this should be there please merge.
This is not a thread on who we can afford and comply with FFPR but it is a post about the so called sanctions which UEFA have supposedly offered us in respect of breaching the regulations this year under FFPR.
Can I state straight at the outset I don't know what the suggested penalty they have handed out but because I wanted to find out what they could do I looked up the actual regulations on FFPR (I am sure most are familiar) and they refer to the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations 2013.
Under Article 6 these are the sanction UEFA can impose on any club for any breach of their regulations.
Article 6 - Disciplinary measures
1
The following disciplinary measures may be imposed on member associations
and clubs:
a) warning;
b) reprimand;
c) fine;
d) annulment of the result of a match;
e) order that a match be replayed;
f) deduction of points (for the current and/or a future competition);
g) order that a match be forfeited;
h) playing of a match behind closed doors;
i) full or partial stadium closure;
j) playing of a match in a third country;
k) withholding of revenues from a UEFA competition;
l) prohibition on registering new players in UEFA competitions;
m) restriction on the number of players that a club may register for participation
in UEFA competitions;
n) disqualification from competitions in progress and/or exclusion from future
competitions;
o) withdrawal of a title or award;
p) withdrawal of a licence
Bearing in mind we have breached financial regulations d) - j) above don't seem particularly relevant and Platini has already said no club will be expelled therefore n) - p) are also not going to apply. By deduction that leaves a warning, reprimand, a fine (maximum fine available 1m pounds (not really going to worry us), withholding revenues well that won't happen because if the whole purpose of the main regulations is to break even this may just be seen as a back door method of punishments under n) - p). Warning or reprimand we can almost exclude those because that might reflect badly on UEFA for not being tough enough, remember all the rhetoric about being tough and throwing clubs out if they failed to comply. Which means the two sanctions left are either
l) prohibition on registering new players in UEFA competitions;
m) restriction on the number of players that a club may register for participation
in UEFA competitions;
If there is a prohibition on registering new players that could certainly be seen as a trade embargo and I would suspect that would be open to challenge in the Courts or secondly squad limitations. In other words we will limit your squad but it is up to you to decide which players are eligible.
So how will this affect our transfer policy this summer? As everyone knows you have to submit an A list of players (max25) and you can then have a B list for academy and under 21 players.
I don't believe they would limit the B list players because effectively that would not be a sanction, so the sanction will be on the A list players. If you remove the 4 players we have to have if you want a max 25 squad who are players who have spent three years or more in OUR academy it leaves 21 players. The regulations do not say whether there is a minimum number of players that UEFA have to leave us with, but one assumes anything less than 11 players would seriously undermine their own competition. UEFA know from the squads we have registered with them in the past how many players both foreign and association players (Hart, Milner etc) we have listed in the past and if they were to reduce the foreign players (currently 17) down to 15 for next season, and association based players from (4 down to 3) it would mean we effectively could only submit an 18 man squad for their competition. The effect of that would be to prevent any new additions to the squad without selling. We have 15 foreign players and one eligible on the B list under 21 ( Nasty). So the talk of signing Mangala Fernando would disappear overnight unless we sold two foreigners to replace them with.
One final point, I don't know the contract details with each player and the club but if the club has stated in the players contract they would be registered on the A list to play in competitions and then subsequently because of the embargo imposed we couldn't list them we would be in breach of contract and the players would be able to walk away from the club for nothing.
In summary
These sanctions are serious and could well if not challenged limit our transfer activity in the summer. The only positive is that the club will no doubt look at this and see whether it will hinder the signings they have planned or whether we might still be able to do our business irrespective.
This is not a thread on who we can afford and comply with FFPR but it is a post about the so called sanctions which UEFA have supposedly offered us in respect of breaching the regulations this year under FFPR.
Can I state straight at the outset I don't know what the suggested penalty they have handed out but because I wanted to find out what they could do I looked up the actual regulations on FFPR (I am sure most are familiar) and they refer to the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations 2013.
Under Article 6 these are the sanction UEFA can impose on any club for any breach of their regulations.
Article 6 - Disciplinary measures
1
The following disciplinary measures may be imposed on member associations
and clubs:
a) warning;
b) reprimand;
c) fine;
d) annulment of the result of a match;
e) order that a match be replayed;
f) deduction of points (for the current and/or a future competition);
g) order that a match be forfeited;
h) playing of a match behind closed doors;
i) full or partial stadium closure;
j) playing of a match in a third country;
k) withholding of revenues from a UEFA competition;
l) prohibition on registering new players in UEFA competitions;
m) restriction on the number of players that a club may register for participation
in UEFA competitions;
n) disqualification from competitions in progress and/or exclusion from future
competitions;
o) withdrawal of a title or award;
p) withdrawal of a licence
Bearing in mind we have breached financial regulations d) - j) above don't seem particularly relevant and Platini has already said no club will be expelled therefore n) - p) are also not going to apply. By deduction that leaves a warning, reprimand, a fine (maximum fine available 1m pounds (not really going to worry us), withholding revenues well that won't happen because if the whole purpose of the main regulations is to break even this may just be seen as a back door method of punishments under n) - p). Warning or reprimand we can almost exclude those because that might reflect badly on UEFA for not being tough enough, remember all the rhetoric about being tough and throwing clubs out if they failed to comply. Which means the two sanctions left are either
l) prohibition on registering new players in UEFA competitions;
m) restriction on the number of players that a club may register for participation
in UEFA competitions;
If there is a prohibition on registering new players that could certainly be seen as a trade embargo and I would suspect that would be open to challenge in the Courts or secondly squad limitations. In other words we will limit your squad but it is up to you to decide which players are eligible.
So how will this affect our transfer policy this summer? As everyone knows you have to submit an A list of players (max25) and you can then have a B list for academy and under 21 players.
I don't believe they would limit the B list players because effectively that would not be a sanction, so the sanction will be on the A list players. If you remove the 4 players we have to have if you want a max 25 squad who are players who have spent three years or more in OUR academy it leaves 21 players. The regulations do not say whether there is a minimum number of players that UEFA have to leave us with, but one assumes anything less than 11 players would seriously undermine their own competition. UEFA know from the squads we have registered with them in the past how many players both foreign and association players (Hart, Milner etc) we have listed in the past and if they were to reduce the foreign players (currently 17) down to 15 for next season, and association based players from (4 down to 3) it would mean we effectively could only submit an 18 man squad for their competition. The effect of that would be to prevent any new additions to the squad without selling. We have 15 foreign players and one eligible on the B list under 21 ( Nasty). So the talk of signing Mangala Fernando would disappear overnight unless we sold two foreigners to replace them with.
One final point, I don't know the contract details with each player and the club but if the club has stated in the players contract they would be registered on the A list to play in competitions and then subsequently because of the embargo imposed we couldn't list them we would be in breach of contract and the players would be able to walk away from the club for nothing.
In summary
These sanctions are serious and could well if not challenged limit our transfer activity in the summer. The only positive is that the club will no doubt look at this and see whether it will hinder the signings they have planned or whether we might still be able to do our business irrespective.