The UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations have been implemented by UEFA since the season 2011/12 with the aim of encouraging responsible spending by clubs for the long-term benefit of football. However, the enforcement of the break-even requirement as defined in Articles 62 and 63 of the Regulations (arguably the most important rules of FFP) has only started this year. Furthermore, UEFA introduced recently amendments to the Procedural rules governing the Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) allowing settlement agreements to be made between the clubs and the CFCB.  

On Friday 16 May, UEFA finally published the nine separate settlement agreements between the respective clubs and the CFCB regarding the non-compliance with the Financial Fair Play (FFP) break-even requirements. The nine agreements are summarized in the table below:  

Tablewiththeninesettlementagreements.jpg (325.3KB)

Interestingly enough, unlike the other clubs, Manchester City, who had a deficit of €180m in the past two seasons, agreed with the CFCB to have a maximum deficit obligation imposed on them this season already. According to the statement on their website, they are on course to financially break-even by 31 May 2014: “rather than having an accumulative allowance of €30m of losses over the next two reporting years, Manchester City will have specific stipulated allowances for 2013/14 and 2014/15 of €20m and €10m respectively.  Significantly, Manchester City plans to be profitable in 2014/15 and in the years that follow.” 

Official statements by the other clubs express a similar view that the imposed sanctions will not bear negative consequences. For example, PSG got caught by the FFP Regulations due to the overvaluation of the sponsorship deal with QTA. [1] The financial numbers for other clubs are a very well kept secret, in practice it would be highly relevant to know why some clubs had to settle for €60m, others for €12m (FC Zenit), and some for only €200K. Thus, it is of paramount importance that UEFA be transparent and releases the full reasoning and facts leading up to the specifics of the settlements. 

The nine settlement agreements provide for more open questions than answers. For example, why can FC Zenit register up to 22 players for UEFA competitions for 2014/15, when Manchester City, PSG, FC Anzhi and Rubin Kazan are only allowed to register 21?  

Unless a third party decides to challenge the agreements in accordance with Article 16 (2) of the Procedural rules governing the CFCB[2], which is highly unlikely at this stage, we will not get to know more about the reasoning and the factual circumstances of the different cases. Furthermore, we will need to wait for at least another year to get the chance to have the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) pronounce itself on the break-even requirement and the new settlement procedure. Taking into account that the clubs concerned do not appear to be substantially affected by the sanctions, it remains very much unclear whether UEFA’s aim of encouraging responsible spending by clubs for the long-term benefit of football is achieved by the break-even requirement and more particularly by these settlements.

[1] Article 61 (2) of UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations states that the acceptable deviation is €5m

[2] Article 16.2. of the Procedural rules governing the UEFA Club Financial Control Body, edition 2014 foresees that: “Any decision of the CFCB chief investigator to conclude a settlement agreement or to apply disciplinary measures within the meaning of Article 14(1) (c) may be reviewed by the adjudicatory chamber at the request of a directly affected party within ten days from the date of publication of the decision.”

Since the landing on the sporting earth of the Übermensch, aka Usain Bolt, Jamaica has been at the centre of doping-related suspicions. Recently, it has been fueling those suspicions with its home-made scandal around the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO). The former executive of JADCO, Renee Anne Shirley, heavily criticized its functioning in August 2013, and Jamaica has been since then in the eye of the doping cyclone.

In light of the reluctance of Jamaica to remedy the failures of JADCO, the World Ani-Doping Agency (WADA) ordered a formal review of the anti-doping practices on the Island. In case of a negative report, WADA would have declared Jamaica non-compliant, this would in turn trigger sanctions by Sport Governing Bodies, in extreme cases even a full ban from major international events (Olympic Games or World Cups). In order to avoid such a dire fate the sporting Minister of Jamaica and the head of WADA met on November 2013 and a reform plan for the Jamaican anti-doping organisations was agreed. The minister accepted to undertake a legislative review of anti-doping law in Jamaica and to evaluate JADCO’s governance and management structure. Furthermore, the Jamaican government allocated new funds to the fight against doping. In short, JADCO is being restructured, this is very much a work in progress, but WADA is strongly backing the reforms so far.

Furthermore, in 2013, Jamaican track and field athletes have been hit by a strange string of positive doping cases: Asafa Powell, Sherone Simpson, Veronique Campbell-Brown, Allison Randall,  Damar Robinson, and (in 2012) Dominique Blake. All those cases lead to sporting bans of various lengths by Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association’s  (JAAA) Disciplinary Panel. However, even the Jamaican doping justice is scrambling, the probity of some judges have been doubted and calls to reverse the bans in the cases of Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson have been heard. Anyhow, the cases will probably end up in front of CAS.

Before CAS, the weaknesses of the Jamaican anti-doping system became overt in the Campbell-Brown case. Indeed, in that case, the JADCO acknowledged that it had been, as a matter of policy choice, constantly ignoring the WADA International Standards for Testing. Thus, CAS was prompt to assert that “systematic and knowing failure, for which no reasonable explanation has been advanced, is deplorable and gives rise to the most serious concerns about the overall integrity of the JAAA’s anti-doping processes, as exemplified in this case by the flaws in JADCO’s sample collection and its documentation” (§182). Consequently, the ban on Veronique Campbell-Brown was lifted. Additionally, in a recent decision (2 May 2014) in the Dominique Blake case, CAS reduced the 6-year ban to 4,5 years because, among other reasons, “she was provided with barely any anti-doping education” and “she has only had one previous experience with doping control (when she was 19 years-old)”.

What kind of lessons does the fiasco of the anti-doping system in Jamaica holds for the whole World Anti-Doping edifice? Well, first, that the local level matters a lot. Indeed, if local authorities are inefficient and/or unwilling to address the various dimensions (education, compliance, enforcement) of the anti-doping fight, the WADA and its rules lose relevance. This might engender loopholes in the global anti-doping regime, thus creating discrepancies between athletes. Indeed, some might be very strictly monitored due to their residence being in a complying country, while others will systematically escape any control or punishment due to insufficient procedural standards. Hence, for the WADA Regime to be successful in reining in doping and ensuring a level playing field for athletes, WADA must urgently warrant that enforcement asymmetries are avoided.