Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City all face the
extraordinary prospect of being excluded from the Champions League
and Europa League in two years because of the huge financial losses
they continue to suffer.
European football chiefs insist they will enforce a ban on those
clubs unless they radically reduce their multi-million pound
losses.
In trouble: Liverpool's financial problems could
see them fall foul of new UEFA regulations
And though Manchester United will escape censure despite their
£716million debt, because they are still making a profit at
present, Liverpool's precarious financial state means they face a
huge crisis if they wish to meet UEFA's tough new rules.
The regulations will be published this summer in a bid to
prevent further clubs going into financial meltdown, as Portsmouth
have done this week, and will outlaw the kind of support that
owners Roman Abramovich and Sheik Mansour have provided Chelsea and
City.
UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino insists that the bodies
set up to regulate the new rules will not baulk at throwing out
clubs who cannot balance their books, whether they be Real Madrid
or Liverpool.
Infantino said: 'It is not our objective to exclude clubs, but
if there are rules, it is our objective that those rules will be
respected. For this reason we have established the club financial
control panel, chaired by Jean Luc Dehaene, who is the former Prime
Minister of Belgium. I don't think somebody like him would be
afraid of anything.
'They are independent to oversee the rules and pass any
potential sanction to the disciplinary committee, which is also
independent and which will decide the sanction.
'But the rules will be the same for everyone and of course they
will be enforced the same for everyone.'
Unable to help: Roman Abramovich
UEFA's drive for what they call financial fair play is the
biggest shake-up of elite football since the formation of the
Champions League in 1992 and represents a direct challenge to the
Premier League's financial model, which has allowed excessive
borrowing and rich benefactors to fund many clubs, factors which
caused the demise of Portsmouth.
The renewed threat from UEFA, who will finalise their new rules
this summer, will wholly undermine Manchester City's plans to spend
further millions this summer.
City recorded a loss of £92.6m last year and that figure is
likely to balloon still further after the extraordinarily expensive
signings of Gareth Barry, Emmanuel Adebayor, Carlos Tevez, Joleon
Lescott and Kolo Toure.
UEFA are likely to demand that by the time the 2012 regulations
come into force, City are on course to break even, which seems
highly unlikely, unless they slash their wage bill and decline to
enter the transfer market.
Liverpool, too, are at huge risk given that last year they
posted losses of £42m and had to pay £36.5m interest on their
debts, which the Anfield club claim have now been reduced from
£350m to £237m.
UEFA will give clubs two years to put their accounts in order
and will allow a transitional period in the first two years of the
scheme, but they insist that clubs such as City and Liverpool
cannot simply continue as they do now and expect to be cleared for
competition.