The Clubs Who Do Not Follow The FFP Must Be Excluded From European Competitions – Inter CEO Ernesto Paolilo

EXCLUSIVE

Ernesto Paolillo, the co-chairman of the European Club Association’s (ECA) Finance Working Group, believes that UEFA are “serious” with regards to implementing the Financial Fair Play (FFP) and stringent sanctions are essential for its working.

UEFA are keen to reduce the debt burden and several rules have come into effect starting the current season, with a three-year period to break even.

The idea being that the clubs do not spend more than they earn and punishments such as suspension from the Champions League or the Europa League could be put in practice.

Last month UEFA decided to do away with their plans of enforcing a transfer ban on clubs who do not meet the said requirements. This was primarily since the player registration lies with FIFA, and not UEFA.

Paolillo mentioned of Inter working towards achieving the same but added that there is a need for a proper deterrent.

“I tell you, first of all, that I’m directly involved in that because in European club association, I’m responsible given that I am chairman of the finance committee. We are working together with UEFA to this project, to these rules. And they (UEFA) are very serious and they will start,” he told Goal.com.

“It means that we know we have to follow this kind of rules. And we are going in this direction. Two years back, we sold (Zlatan) Ibrahimovic. This year, we sold (Samuel) Eto’o. It means we are going in that direction to lower our cost, just not to have the losses and to be in the right position for the Financial Fair Play (FFP).”

Clubs such as Manchester City, who announced their £195 million loss in the 2010-11 financial year, could face the brunt of UEFA if they do not fall in line with the regulations which stipulate a loss of not more than £39.5m over the next three years as the European governing body for football, in its quest to create a level playing field for the 660 top division clubs scattered across 53 European nations, could issue a penalty.

And Paolillo believes that this will make the wastrel clubs take notice and fall in line with the FFP rules.

“The sanctions have been quite announced from UEFA. The kind of sanctions that we are expecting, are first of all, limiting utilization of players both, not respecting the limit of the rules of financial fair play.

“ The law sanctioned is (the club) to be excluded (from) the European tournament. So I think these kinds of sanction are so important that clubs will follow the rules.”

How do you stay up to date with football when on the move? With http://m.goal.com – your best source for mobile coverage of the beautiful game.