FFP

[paul_e]

Well, to repost again then:

Doesn't that plan immediately fall apart when UEFA shrug their shoulders and say "fine, we'll give your spot in next seasons Champions League to the team that hasn't deliberately and openly broken the rules"?

Like Chelsea?

No, not like Chelsea.

Put your hypothetical plan into action last summer, we go and spend £200m. UEFA now say "but we told you that you needed to have a net positive transfer spend. You've taken the piss, so just like we said, you're not adding any of those new players to your European squad. And because you're taking the piss, it's not just for a year, it's for the full three years that we threatened. Now go away and get your house in order".

Which shiny new players are now interested in joining us?

How did UEFA’s compliance work when banning Manchester City?

Neither Man City or previously Chelsea are relevant to this discussion (other than Chelsea to the extent that they were punished at the same time we were) because this is different rules. Man City escaped because the rules at the time had a 5 year limit that UEFA missed.

[Somniloquism]

I will mention it was FIFA and not UEFA, but Chelsea did have a one years transfer ban several years ago for breaching rules. They do sometimes get enforced no matter the size of the club.

[LeonW]

Well, to repost again then:

Doesn't that plan immediately fall apart when UEFA shrug their shoulders and say "fine, we'll give your spot in next seasons Champions League to the team that hasn't deliberately and openly broken the rules"?

Like Chelsea?

No, not like Chelsea.

Put your hypothetical plan into action last summer, we go and spend £200m. UEFA now say "but we told you that you needed to have a net positive transfer spend. You've taken the piss, so just like we said, you're not adding any of those new players to your European squad. And because you're taking the piss, it's not just for a year, it's for the full three years that we threatened. Now go away and get your house in order".

Which shiny new players are now interested in joining us?

How did UEFA’s compliance work when banning Manchester City?

I don't follow - at what point do you think UEFA should have banned Man City and on what grounds?

Really? It was 2020 I suppose. They were banned by UEFA for 2 years for ‘serious financial breaches.’ Subsequently overturned.

[LeonW]

Well, to repost again then:

Doesn't that plan immediately fall apart when UEFA shrug their shoulders and say "fine, we'll give your spot in next seasons Champions League to the team that hasn't deliberately and openly broken the rules"?

Like Chelsea?

No, not like Chelsea.

Put your hypothetical plan into action last summer, we go and spend £200m. UEFA now say "but we told you that you needed to have a net positive transfer spend. You've taken the piss, so just like we said, you're not adding any of those new players to your European squad. And because you're taking the piss, it's not just for a year, it's for the full three years that we threatened. Now go away and get your house in order".

Which shiny new players are now interested in joining us?

How did UEFA’s compliance work when banning Manchester City?

Neither Man City or previously Chelsea are relevant to this discussion (other than Chelsea to the extent that they were punished at the same time we were) because this is different rules. Man City escaped because the rules at the time had a 5 year limit that UEFA missed.

It’s completely relevant.

[Dave]

That time, UEFA tried to ban them, Man City appealed the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, CAS reduced the punishment to a fine. It definitely doesn't suggest that UEFA will just shrug and ignore what we're doing.

It's not particularly relevant in this situation though, as Paul says. If we go out and buy a load of players, UEFA say they don't recognise them as eligible to play for us in their competitions. We play them anyway, UEFA awards a victory to whoever we were playing. 

It's a bit like saying that the transfer window is unfair, so we're just going to sign players in March anyway. Then being grumpy when we're told we can't use them in football matches.

[Toronto Villa]

I know this sounds defeatist but I’m arriving at the point mentally that corruption is just the way it is. No amount of outrage and facts will change the outcome. Not just the Chelsea thing, the latest instalment of what we can all see being an overt breaking of multiple rules being brushed away with impunity. But generally what’s happening around the world. The USA just going round starting wars without any authority to do so, price gouging by large corporations and multinationals. Why? Because they just can. There are thousands of other examples of things despite the facts there’s fuck all we can do. So in the grand scheme of things as we, Villa try to follow the rules and get fucked over for them, others just do what they want because they know the consequences will take forever to be decided upon and even they are it won’t matter at all. Man City up next.

[LeonW]

That time, UEFA tried to ban them, Man City appealed the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, CAS reduced the punishment to a fine. It definitely doesn't suggest that UEFA will just shrug and ignore what we're doing.

It's not particularly relevant in this situation though, as Paul says. If we go out and buy a load of players, UEFA say they don't recognise them as eligible to play for us in their competitions. We play them anyway, UEFA awards a victory to whoever we were playing. 

It's a bit like saying that the transfer window is unfair, so we're just going to sign players in March anyway. Then being grumpy when we're told we can't use them in football matches.

Dave, I get your points. They are reasonable and well argued and I agree with them in principle. But they’re operating on the basis of consistency in compliance being applied by those governing bodies and we’re seeing that that just isn’t happening. We could well get punished for flouting them…or we could get away with it because we employ better lawyers. So either we continue to try and take the fully compliant path which will most likely see our better players sold on the cheap, Emery potentially leave, barely keeping up with the Jones, and having to operate at the end of the transfer window only once we know who is going and who is staying (like last summer) to see what our remaining allowable pennies get us even though we have zero debt. Or we break the rules and take our chances with either fighting off or reducing non-compliances whilst getting significant benefits along the way. Manchester City’s 115 charges haven’t stopped them spending like a drunken sailor or more pointedly, players joining them knowing what is hanging in the air.

[paul_e]

It’s completely relevant.

No it isn't they were a different set of regulations, they tried to punish Man City and CAS removed most of the punishment because UEFA, stupidly, gave themselves 5 years to bring charges for rule breeches and then took too long. There was nothing they could do in the end to enforce those rules. So they wrote new ones, which came into place just in time for us to be caught up in them, to stop it from happening again.

Since those new rules Chelsea and Barcelona have both been given similar, and commensurate, restrictions to us so the only evidence we have is that, since this set came in and were enforced for the first time in summer 2025, everyone has been treated in line with the rules regardless of who they are, which is exactly what you'd want and expect.

It is bullshit that past cheating which enabled clubs to grow their revenue well beyond any natural level is going unpunished, we all agree on that but without a time machine and no concern for creation of a paradox there's fuck all anyone at UEFA can do about that now.

The Premier League in it's recent ruling have taken the piss, and may well do it again when they eventually deal with Man City but they're only taking the piss because their rules allow for a proper punishment and they've chosen not to give it out, UEFA had their hands tied by CAS and could do nothing more than fix the loopholes going forward.

[Dave]

Yeah, all of that ^

And likewise Leon, I fully understand where you're coming from. And it it were just the Premier League then I'd be closer to agreeing with you. Although all of this is a bit of an online cri de coeur, there's absolutly no way the club would consider it as a realistic option.

But as Paul says, UEFA (for their myirad faults) don't seem to give much of a toss these days whether you're piddly little Aston Villa or massive, important-for-the-UEFA-brand Barcelona, and if they think you're outside their rules it's a lot easier for them to pick up their ball and take it home with them than it is for the Premier League to.