What Should Happen To Manchester City's Financial Fair Play Fine?

Following Manchester City‘s protracted battle with UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations it came to light yesterday that following an agreement between clubs and European football’s governing body, the money brought in from Manchester City’s fine would be distributed amongst clubs involved in UEFA competitions, including those already fairly wealthy clubs within the Premier League.

City were fined a fee in the region of £50million due to their breach of the regulations although according to Martyn Ziegler in The Independent, the club will only have to pay £20million of that if the club comply with the rules in the upcoming years.

This money will be shared amongst clubs who have been FFP compliant, but is this the correct place for the money to go?

Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said the concept of FFP compliant clubs receiving a share of the fine had been agreed by UEFA, however, there are a number of clubs including Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal who will receive money which in truth they don’t need.

The concept of FFP is to firstly ensure that there are no repeats of the situations we saw at Portsmouth and Leeds United where a club’s spending far outweighs its income over a sustained period thus forcing the club into financial meltdown at a later date.

Secondly the measures are in place to keep the European game fair to a certain degree. However, handing even more money to the rich is hardly doing that is it?

There are more clubs in need of a slight financial boost than the likes of Chelsea and United, but this is not to say the money recouped from City’s fine should be a form of charity but to ensure the future development of clubs it is important that the money should be used in a positive manner.

Ben Rumsby’s report in The Telegraph states clubs are set to earn around £210,000 from the measures currently in place. For some clubs at the lower end of the European scale this would be a jackpot. Of course handing out money on a no strings attached basis would breed different issues but at a time when clubs are finding it difficult to not only balance the books but also allocate funding to certain areas this small bonus payment would, to some, be a godsend.

Youth development is a hugely important part of football and one which UEFA has not ignored with record funding going towards projects related to developing football at lower levels. However, even more could be done, particularly with individual clubs, using the money brought into UEFA through City and other clubs’ respective fines.

Restrictions could be placed on the money being shared which would require it to be spent entirely on developing the younger levels of football at a club as well as the youth infrastructure i.e. facilities and more specialised coaching.

Clubs could then focus spending their own revenue on areas of short-term improvements for example, the first-team whilst simultaneously improving their future at no extra and impossible cost to them. In terms of FFP in the long-term this would be a benefit as in theory clubs would produce far better players at an increased rate meaning future high spending on transfers would be less necessary.

Of course on the other hand there will be those who say the fines should go to City’s rivals otherwise it wouldn’t be a true punishment but that isn’t what the process is about.

The money should be kept in football and used for further development of the game where it is needed most. Can anybody truly say the likes of Chelsea, United or even Real Madrid are going to benefit from a payment of just under a quarter of a million pounds?

There will be a meeting this October to discuss any potential changes to the FFP system and whether there are better ways for the money to be used and I for one hope there will be a change of tact and the majority of the money will go to the future good of the game in places which need it.