Manchester City, PSG hit out at FFP €60m each fine

English and French champions Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) have agreed settlements with Uefa involving €60m ($83.4m) fines for breaching Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations, but maintained their unhappiness at the assessment of their financial status by football’s European governing body.

On Friday evening, Uefa’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) Investigatory Chamber announced that City and PSG, along with seven other clubs, agreed to settlement deals relating to investigations opened following non-compliance with FFP regulations. The English Premier League champion and its French Ligue 1 counterpart, bankrolled by UAE and Qatari owners, received the stiffest sanctions, with the fines representing the biggest that Uefa has ever handed out.

The punishments for both City and PSG run along similar lines, with €40m of the fines being returned to the clubs if they fulfil their financial obligations over the next two years. Those obligations include limiting deficits to €10m in the financial year ending in 2015 for City, with PSG allowed a deficit of €30m for that period before being obligated to break even by 2016.
The Premier League champions joined Paris St-Germain, who were given a similar penalty, and seven other clubs in accepting the first wave of FFP sanctions.

Under the complex ruling, the club must also agree to a string of other conditions: maximum losses of €20m in 2014 and €10m in 2015, to cap their wage bill at current levels for the next two seasons and to “significantly limit” spending in the transfer market for the same period.

The sanctions will limit Manuel Pellegrini’s options when it comes to naming his 21-man European squad, cut from the usual 25, of which eight must qualify as “homegrown”. City pointed out, however, that last season they registered 23 players and used only 21.