UEFA President Alexander Ceferin says he doesn’t think Financial Fair Play (FFP) will be mothballed following the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s decision on Manchester City’s case last month.
CAS effectively ripped up UEFA’s verdict, lifting the Manchester club’s two-year ban from European competitions, but Ceferin claims that procedural errors were the key reason why City’s appeal was successful:
“We were not happy with the decision of Court of Arbitration for Sport. But we have to respect the decision of the body that we agreed is the last instance in our decision-making process. It (FFP) is not dead and again, Financial Fair Play was successful in this case, here were some procedural things, obviously that were decisive.”
Ceferin’s assessment is essentially accurate. UEFA found City guilty of actions that happened beyond the five years that UEFA sets for prosecuting allegations.
Some other clubs will argue that City got off on a technicality but CAS also stated that UEFA failed to prove its case even on the allegations which were not time-barred.
The charges that were brought by UEFA and the way the investigation was handled, in particular, caused a huge rift between City and European football’s governing body, and it remains to be seen what sort of relationship the two will have going forward.
