What I cannot get my head around is this concept of related parties, or not related parties, and how it applies to our sponsorship revenue.
When formulating the FFP rules and the calculation of the break-even requirement, UEFA decided not to use some arbitrary method of determining this, but instead to use rules and principles as defined in International Accounting Standards. The very same principles auditors use when determining whether income should be declared as being from related parties or not.
This was in theory a wise and sensible move. Not only are the rules well known and understood by all the audit firms, they contain rules and guidelines which apply objective, not subjective tests. For the very reason that we do not want to have a situation where companies accounts are open to interpretation, with one firm saying one thing and another firm concluding something different. If a party is deemed not to be related, then all of the income from that organisation is by its very definition "fair market value" since it was fairly obtained from the market! Of course the opposite is true: If revenue is coming from a related party, then there is a question about the basis upon which that revenue was secured and therefore a question about what the fair value would have been had it been obtained on the open market.
As I understand it, Etihad Aviation Group is owned by the Abu Dhabi government, not by ADUG and neither by any other organisation over which Sheikh Mansour has control. In any event the question as to whether Etihad is related or not, will have been the subject of our annual audit of our accounts. And our independent accountants have repeatedly signed off our accounts on the basis that Etihad is NOT a related party. To do so, knowing or suspecting this to be untrue, would be a criminal offence and surely something that any reputable accounting firm would never contemplate.
So how on earth is it that UEFA can unilaterally decide that Etihad *is* related? Sure it may smack of being a bit of a fiddle - since we can all imagine there may be possible influences which could be brought to bear amongst the upper eschelons of the Abu Dhabi powers that be. But that is really not the point, and is - from UEFA's perspective "tough shit". IAS24 - the standard which deals with related parties - has very specific objective tests, which we have passed. It is not within UEFA's remit to decide upon a different set of criteria. Their own rules say they will apply IAS24 standards, and those standards define Etihad as not being related.
And if Etihad is not related, then there can be no question of us having artificially inflated our revenues (from Etihad). They are what they are, as stated in our audited accounts.
What am I missing here? Apart from UEFA being a bunch of crooks who will make up the rules as they go along and as it suits them, of course.