Football: Concerns about the English Premier League new financial rules on Europe
By Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw
English Premier League football clubs will change to a new financial system called squad cost ratio (SCR) next season, which allows clubs to spend 85% of their income on player costs. However, applying a complicated set of factors, clubs could spend up to 115%.
On the other hand, the UEFA SCR spending limit is 70%, which applies to all football clubs playing in the Champions, Europa and Conference Leagues.
There is no universal SCR or percentage across the top European football leagues, but others have more stringent rules than the English Premier League.
This means that English Premier League clubs, which are not playing in Europe, have a much higher spending power, and this could increase their ability to attract new players.
UEFA is concerned that this disparity could undermine financial stability measures in European football.
The UEFA director of financial sustainability and research, Andrea Traveso, has stated that:
"The Premier League alone now generates a quarter of all European club revenues.”
And has added that:
"With more spending power on top, this will create tensions in the market.”
He expressed the matter succinctly as follows:
"The objective at UEFA is financial sustainability. The objective at the Premier League is competitiveness."
However, the English Premier League has rejected all these claims and insists that its new rules will ensure competitive balance. In fact, it is against any uniform financial fair play system.
It will be interesting to see if and how this matter is eventually resolved!
Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw may be contacted by e-mail at ‘
