FINANCES:UEFA PRESIDENT Michel Platini's plan to make clubs live within their means was dismissed yesterday as "unrealistic and impossible" by Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore. Scudamore said that Platini's plans for what he describes as financial fair play "will never happen".
Platini unveiled his plans at the end of August which he hopes will lead to an ending of “sugar daddies” buying into the game and transforming the fortunes of a club.
The Frenchman wants to link a soccer club’s spending to its revenue and said he had the backing of powerful men like Chelsea’s billionaire owner Roman Abramovich for his financial overhauls.
Clubs of a certain size will be obliged to balance their books so they will not be allowed to spend more than the revenue they generate.
The scheme is to be gradually implemented over a three-year period and is expected to be fully in force by season 2012-’13, and will be overseen by Uefa new Club Financial Control Panel.
However Scudamore, asked about Platini’s proposals, said: “Ultimately you will have to do things like levelling out all the tax rates, levelling out all the state subsidies in stadia.
“So if you are going to have financial fair-play, which we don’t think you can realistically do, you would have to level out all these things. That’s never going to happen in our view. You’d have to level out immigration in terms of the rules that allow players in (to a country).
“These are concerns that we have, but they have to be put in to the mix of all the other vagaries. It’s unrealistic because ultimately if you’re going to regulate how much a club can spend to its earnings, then you have to regulate earnings, every single bit of it.”
Many of Europe’s top clubs have huge debts, with Real Madrid having an estimated debt of €563 million up to the end of the 2007-’08 season. Financial experts have estimated Real’s current debt could run to around €900 million following their close-season spending spree.
Premier League club Chelsea reported losses of €73 million up to June last year while Red Football, Manchester United’s parent company owned by the Glazer family, recorded a €23 million loss last year and has a total debt of €636 million.
