UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations

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The UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations (FFP) are a set of regulations established to prevent professional football clubs spending more than they earn in the pursuit of success, and in doing so not getting into financial problems which might threaten their long-term survival.^[1] Some have argued that they were instituted to prevent financial "doping" from outside sources injecting money into smaller clubs.^[2] They were agreed to in September 2009 by the Financial Control Panel of football's governing body in Europe (Union of European Football Associations – UEFA).

The regulations provide for sanctions to be taken against clubs who exceed spending, over several seasons, within a set budgetary framework. Implementation of the regulations took place at the outset of the 2011–12 football season.^[3] The severest penalty is disqualification from the European competitions.^[4] Other penalties included fines, the withholding of prize money, and player transfer bans.

On announcing the new legislation, former UEFA President Michel Platini said,

Fifty per cent of clubs are losing money and this is an increasing trend. We needed to stop this downward spiral. They have spent more than they have earned in the past and haven't paid their debts. We don't want to kill or hurt the clubs; on the contrary, we want to help them in the market. The teams who play in our tournaments have unanimously agreed to our principles…living within your means is the basis of accounting but it hasn't been the basis of football for years now. The owners are asking for rules because they can't implement them themselves – many of them have had it with shovelling money into clubs and the more money you put into clubs, the harder it is to sell at a profit.^[1]

Platini went on to say that the measures were supported by the majority of football club owners, and that an independent panel would be set up to judge whether clubs had broken the rules.^[1] Although the intentions of encouraging greater financial caution in football have been well-received, FFP has been criticised as illegal by limiting the internal market, failing to reduce football club debt and protecting the status quo.^[5][2] In 2015, UEFA announced FFP would be "eased". A newspaper article alleged that this was in response to a number of lawsuits.^[6]