On Valentines Day, Manchester City fans were left with a heartbreaking blow to their campaign to become “Kings of Europe” when they received a ban from the Champions League for the next two seasons.
In addition to their exclusion from the biggest club competition in Europe, City were handed a £25 million fine. These two sanctions are punishment for the club being found guilty of misleading UEFA and breaching the financial fair play rules.
What Have Manchester City Done?
To stop clubs “buying trophies” by simply using their significant wealth to buy the world’s best players, and to protect the financial sustainability of less well off football clubs, each club can spend no more than £3.9 million more than they earn over a three year period. They’re also not allowed to make a loss of more than £35 million unless their owner can cover it. These rules have been called financial fair play.
To be able to spend more money, Manchester City have allegedly inflated the cost of sponsorship deals with the club’s owner Sheikh Mansour covering most of the bill. For example, Etihad are the shirt sponsor for Manchester City and have apparently paid £67.5 million for the privilege. A leaked email suggests that they actually only paid £8 million, with the rest of the money coming from Mansour.
How will Chelsea be Affected?
Manchester City’s loss is everyone else’s gain. One of the teams most likely to benefit from this will be Chelsea, who will have a much smoother path to the Champions League for the next few years.
Chelsea continue to have good odds for finishing the Premier League in the top 4, although a resurgent Manchester United are closing up behind them. Yet, with City not allowed to take part in the Champions League, finishing in just 5th place will be enough.
A place in the Champions League is important for Chelsea, who reported a £102 million loss in 2018-19, despite winning the Europa League. Finishing first in the second tier European competition is worth upwards of €17 million to a club, while winning the Champions League will earn them around €70 million. Time will tell how the club will do in this year’s Europa League competition, with performance being key for boss Sarri.
Even just making it into the group stages of the Champions League earns a club €15,250,000, with more than €1 million awarded for every group stage game they win. It’s clear to see how this is important for Chelsea’s finances.
What About the Premier League?
At present, no punishments have been dished out to Manchester City in the Premier League for their financial fair play breaches. However, their rivals are reportedly looking for a domestic punishment too.
Currently, there’s no consensus as to what that punishment should be, although all clubs agree that relegation would be too harsh. Their biggest reason for wanting the punishment is that they believe City’s willingness to splash the cash on buying new players increased the cost for the other teams.
Stopping City from continuing to pay these big fees may bring down the cost of players for other top clubs, including Chelsea. This will make buying players cheaper, but it will mean they could also get less for players they want to sell.
Outside of this, it’s not yet clear on how Chelsea could be affected by any Premier League punishment.
What About an Appeal?
Manchester City’s management shocked most pundits when they responded very aggressively to the findings by UEFA. This has caused some tension in the Premier League, with some leading figures questioning why City didn’t just accept the ban.
Instead, they promised to have the ban overturned in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). They added that they were “disappointed but not surprised” by UEFA’s decision, claiming that their process was flawed.
The appeal could see the ban completely overturned, in which case City would be allowed to compete in the Champions League next season and Chelsea would need to finish in the top 4 to secure a place.
The ban could be reduced to one year, lengthened to more, or upheld (kept the same). In which case Chelsea will be able to qualify with 5th place. However, the outcome of the appeal will not be known for some time, so Chelsea still need to continue to focus on securing a top 4 place.
With some tough games left to play, including matches against City and Liverpool, it won’t be an easy ride.
