UEFA have sent out a warning to clubs and associations that they won’t tolerate breaches of Financial Fair Play.
Last week the associations of Albania, Serbia and Kazakhstan had stricter audit conditions imposed after allowing clubs that failed to meet the criteria appear in UEFA competitions.
Among the red flag items are unpaid social taxes and running up debts greater than £5m over a three year period which is viewed as putting the future of the club in jeopardy in order to cash in on payments from UEFA from the Europa League and Champions League.
Yesterday UEFA stated:
UEFA conducts an annual assessment of all clubs against the break-even requirements of FFP on a rolling three-year basis. This includes a thorough assessment of clubs’ financial positions on the basis of both the information disclosed by the clubs (based on their independently audited financial statements), as well as a number of compliance checks and analysis undertaken by UEFA (including independent external audits). If new information comes to light that may be material to this assessment, UEFA will use that to challenge the figures and will seek explanation, clarification or rebuttal from the club concerned.
Reaching the group stage of the Europa League provides a pay-out of £2.6m.
Each group stage win is worth £320,000 with £105,000 paid out for a draw.
Winning the group brings a bonus payout of £897,000 with the runners up collecting £448,000 for reaching the last 32 of the competition.
