Uefa Reveals 76 Top Clubs Under FFP Investigation

Michel François Platini

UEFA is investigating 76 Champions League and Europa League clubs for potentially breaking the Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules designed to curb excessive spending.

The first sanctions against clubs will be announced in April, UEFA said on Friday.

Clubs involved in more serious cases will also be identified then, with UEFA setting a June deadline to publish of verdicts ahead of the qualifying round draws for next season’s Champions League and Europa League.

“Uefa in this respect is taking the lead in order to protect European football from greed, from reckless spending, from financial insanity,” Uefa secretary general Gianni Infantino said, according to the Associated Press news agency.

UEFA revealed figures Friday after studying financial reports from 2012, the first of a two-year monitoring period to begin the Financial Fair Play regime.

UEFA says the 76 -- almost one third of clubs which entered the Champions League and Europa League this season -- had a total deficit of 600 million euros ($828 million) according to its break-even calculations.

The clubs have been asked to give updated financial statements to an independent UEFA-appointed panel monitoring their finances. The panel is chaired by Jean-Luc Dehaene, a former prime minister of Belgium.

Uefa is permitting clubs to report a deficit of €45m against the break-even calculations for the initial two-year monitoring period. That loss can be covered by a one-time equity payment by club owners.

Following the publication of its latest benchmarking report in September, Uefa claimed that its FFP regulations were already having a positive effect on the financial affairs of European clubs. The governing body announced a €600m reduction in the aggregate losses of top division clubs in the last financial year.

Europe’s 725 top-tier clubs lost €1.066bn between them, compared to €1.7bn in the previous year. The turnaround followed six years of increasing losses.