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  5. La Liga chief wants UEFA to investigate Manchester City's spending

La Liga chief wants UEFA to investigate Manchester City's spending

Manchester City and PSG spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the transfer window that closed last week.

Reported by: AP Madrid (Spain) Published on: September 04, 2017 16:57 IST
Financial Fair Play Rule
Image Source : GETTY IMAGES Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola during a match.

The Spanish soccer league wants UEFA to investigate Manchester City's spending and expand its newly-launched probe into whether Paris Saint-Germain has breached Financial Fair Play rules.

Spanish league president Javier Tebas said in a statement to The Associated Press on Monday that Abu Dhabi-funded City and Qatari-owned PSG are benefiting from state aid which distorts European competitions and "is irreparably harming the football industry."

Tebas wrote separate letters to European soccer's governing body on Aug. 22 requesting investigations into Man City and PSG.


UEFA said Friday it would look into whether PSG was flouting rules designed to control excessive spending by top European clubs. Tebas wants UEFA to look into "PSG's history of noncompliance."

Both City and PSG spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the transfer window that closed last week, and the Spanish league claims the teams "benefit from sponsorships that make no economic sense and lack any fair value."

"PSG and Man City's funding by state-aid distorts European competitions and creates an inflationary spiral that is irreparably harming the football industry," Tebas said. "UEFA must enforce FFP regulations to avoid discrimination among clubs."

In 2014, PSG and City were the main targets of the first round of FFP sanctions. Both had 20 million euros ($24 million) of their Champions League prize money deducted and had limits imposed on their spending and squad size for matches.

Then, UEFA judges told PSG that a sponsorship deal with Qatar's tourism authority had been inflated above fair market value to help the club comply with the rules.

It was only in April that UEFA declared that PSG had fulfilled its obligations of stricter ongoing scrutiny.

"PSG is a habitual offender and has been violating UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations for years," Tebas said. "It is important that UEFA doesn't just look at the most recent player transfers, but at PSG's history of noncompliance. The transfers are merely the result of years of financial doping at PSG."

UEFA's club finance monitoring panel intervened last week to open a fresh investigation into PSG after the French club broke the world record fee to sign Neymar from Barcelona for 222 million euros ($262 million) and on Thursday signed Monaco forward Kylian Mbappe.

The deal for the 18-year-old Mbappe was unusual as a one-season loan with a commitment to pay a reported 180 million euros ($216 million) next year, delaying PSG's financial commitment to the deal.

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