The organization, after all, has emphasized its continued commitment to its regulations. The city has not shown that FFP is illegal under European Union law (and in the end it was not trying to do so). UEFA simply has not presented a case strong or fast enough to monitor its rules in this case.
The problem is that it is not just this instance. This is the third time that UEFA has tried to punish an elite from the continent, despite all its attempts to characterize itself as a kind of insurgent loser, that is precisely the group to which Manchester City belongs, and it is the third time that it fails. to bring any of them to the heel. It has been undone, again, by procedural technicalities.
There has not been a spectacular and conclusive violation in FFP; only a series of cracks appear that fatally undermine the foundation. For the richest and most powerful clubs, the rules are beginning to closely resemble the guidelines, and the impression is that UEFA cannot enforce them universally, anyway. There is now a precious little incentive for anyone to join them.
That such a blow now occurs is significant. UEFA has already agreed to temporarily suspend some of its cost control measures to allow clubs to weather the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
However, even before the virus hit, UEFA was considering how its financial rules could be altered, updated, possibly simplified, to make them easier to understand and possibly more attractive to follow. The city’s acquittal gives weight to the argument that the current approach is not up to the task, but also highlights how difficult it will be to rewrite the rules.
There is a school of thought that may not be worth the time and effort. The belief that FFP is not doing what it was supposed to do has become a truth: an idea put forward almost a decade ago to improve football’s financial health and decrease its debt dependency has instead become in a tool to entrench the status quo, to block ambitious clubs outside the golden circle.
However, criticism is easier than construction. If Financial Fair Play is ruled out, if Manchester City’s claim proves to be their death sentence, one question remains: What’s next?
