By Akinwale Kasali
The reigning Barclays English Premier League team, Manchester City, has been destroyed by the European Football Body, Union of European Football Association, UEFA. The two year ban which effectively stops the Club from featuring in the UEFA Champions League competition for two years will definitely take a toll on both the moral and financial status of the elite Club.
The Club was banned as a result of the Club’s breaching of the financial fair play rule, resulting in its being fined 30 million Euros for “serious breaches” of European soccer’s financial regulations.
Decision to ban the club was agreed upon over the weekend following an independent financial control body of UEFA, the governing body for soccer in Europe, which found that Manchester City had been guilty of multiple violations related to club licensing and so-called financial fair play rules — cost controls put in place by UEFA to try to mitigate the growing gap between rich clubs and poor ones in European leagues, and to tackle a growing debt crisis.
The club, which also was criticized for failing to cooperate with UEFA’s investigators, also was fined 30 million Euros ($32.5 million).
The penalty is the most significant punishment UEFA has handed out in the decade since it created its financial fair play regulations, and if upheld, its consequences for Manchester City’s balance sheet and its competitive future would be severe.
Participation in the Champions League is worth about $100 million a year to the club, and missing out on it could factor into the career decisions of some of the team’s star players, potential signings and Coach, Pep Guardiola throwing in the towel and moving on.
The ban however, has no effect on this year’s Champions League. Manchester City, which has never won the competition, will play Real Madrid on Feb. 26 in the first leg of a home-and-home series in the round of 16. And City, which is currently second in the Premier League, may be able to delay a ban for next season if its appeal is not resolved before the 2020-21 Champions League begins this fall.
It will be recalled that the same financial fair play rule cost AC Milan missing out of this year’s UEFA Europa League competition.
