How will FFPR work? Look to the Euro.

European bureaucrats seem to be making a mess of things in all manner of ways at the moment.

A few years ago the UK opted to stay out of the European Single Currency ‘project’ because it was ill conceived and forced many diverging economies to have a one size fits all central bank.

It was an economist’s nightmare and of course has now been proven to be no more than a politically motivated grand plan doomed to failure. 

But now we have UEFA and its grandees forcing another ill conceived project through. This time one that makes football clubs from many different leagues in many different countries to work to a single financial model. It is of course not about the economics but is a politically motivated grand plan. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

In the same way that the Euro has caused far more problems than the benefits it would ever bring so FFPR is already proving to create more answers than questions.

The parallels between FFPR and the Euro are there to see in how the members/clubs will be punished for breaking the rules of membership. Or more accurately wont be punished.

In Euro terms the rules were laid down and included limits on individual countries' debt levels as a percentage of GDP. These have been fully and completed ignored and led to the financial crisis we are currently in.

For FFPR we are told that clubs need to only spend what they earn but if they don't abide by that then what?

Well its now clear that they wont be fined or lose prize money as that would only exacerbate the problems for which a club is judged guilty of.

Likewise clubs will not be barred from using a player bought with the excessive spending FFPR was designed to stop as that would be, amongst other things, a restraint of trade and against EU law.

And clubs will not be thrown out of UEFA’s competitions as its own sponsors know that its the big clubs that sell their products, and its the same big clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City and Chelsea who are most likely to be in breach of FFPR.

Just as Italy, France, Spain and latterly even Germany breached the agreed levels of debt allowable for Euro membership but remained untouched then these big clubs are simply too big to ban.

Of course the problems for UEFA would melt away if they had based their new rules on the levels of debt accrued by a club and in the stroke of a pen the real problems facing clubs would be gone if benefactors were allowed to conduct debt/equity swaps.

If that were the case then FFPR would have done what it was originally conceived to do.

Strangely debt/equity swaps are exactly what UEFA has focussed on and in doing so they have made it less likely that new owners (and their new money) will come into football at all. Not a great idea really as there are in excess of 100 clubs currently looking for new investment to save them from possible extinction.

Again a parallel between FFPR and the Euro crisis where some banks are unlikely to survive just as some clubs are on the brink, both for a lack of new money.

Will UEFA allow clubs to go to the wall for the sole reason of stopping Manchester City and Chelsea?

But as we have seen with these grand European plans they are seemingly driven on by the ego’s of people who live, not in the real world but in a cosseted, five star luxury one.

Such plans are about ignoring common sense and reason in pursuit of a goal.

And there is a feeling that Platini and his UEFA accountants are on the brink of achieving nothing more than a pyrrhic victory.