Last week, many clubs were fined for submitting late financial reports, specifically for the 2023-2024 season. The most serious case is probably AS Roma's case when the Serie A representative had to pay 2 million Euros. This includes fines for violating a number of articles of the Financial Fairness Act (FFP) for the fiscal year ending in June 2023.
UEFA's Club Finance Control Board (CFCB) met this week to assess the ballistics according to the newly issued squad cost rule (SCR).
SCR stipulates that the total transfer fee, salary and representative fee of players must not exceed a certain percentage of the club's total revenue. For the 2023-2024 season, this figure is 90%. However, it will decrease to about 80% for the 2024-2025 campaign. It is expected that it will only be about 70% from 2025 onwards.
All clubs have reported squad costs within the 90% limit, but in addition to Aston Villa, Marseille have also been fined for late payment. The Ligue-1 representative had to pay 20,000 Euros, half as much as the Villa Park team.
Aston Villa's transfer activities this summer were heavily affected by the Premier League's profit and sustainability regulations (PSR). Therefore, Villa was forced to sell players from the "home and garden" class to avoid being heavily fined.
"SCR and PSR are two completely different concepts. While SCR forces you to sell away high-profile players, PSR forces you to sell Academy talent or cheaper stars in the squad. It is difficult to balance both of these laws. I think there are some points in the Premier League that have not followed UEFA's rules.
Speaking about SCR, we can take an example like this. To reduce the cost-to-ous revenue ratio, we were lucky to sell Moussa Diaby to Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia. Although Diaby's price is quite high, it does not mean that the team has earned a large profit. Therefore, we have to sell expensive players to narrow that gap" - Ason Villa football director Damian Vdiagany shared.
AS Roma's case is different from Aston Villa's. The Italian team was included in a four-year settlement agreement by UEFA in 2023 after failing to break even according to FFP rules. According to calculations from CFCB, if following SCR's rules, Roma spent "a little" more than the limit, thereby leading to a penalty.
According to Transfermarkt, Roma has hastily announced a profit in the transfer market for the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 seasons, before their net loss of 64 million Euros was determined last month.
Unlike Roma, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Juventus, Monaco, Marseille and PSG were all included in the settlement agreement by UEFA in 2023 after failing to meet FFP rules. However, no team has been fined this time as the CFCB continues to monitor their progress.
The heaviest of these is Istanbul Basaksehir. The Turkish team could be banned from playing in UEFA tournaments for one year if next season, the indicators in their financial reports are not validly determined by the FFP and CFCB.
