UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has said that European football’s governing body is prepared to thoroughly punish clubs that violate financial fair play regulations.
Ceferin said that UEFA will not look at the reputation of a club before punishing it.
“No, of course not,” he said when asked whether he feared excluding big clubs from the Champions League.
“Believe me, the regulations are the same for the big and the small.”
“I am a lawyer. I know that if you sanction with a fine once, you have to impose a different sanction the second time,” the UEFA president said. “I do not talk about any specific club because our investigations are still ongoing.
“But one thing is clear: If you don’t take heed of a punishment, then nothing will happen. We will remind all involved to follow the rules. And if that does not work out, there will be severe punishments which show that we are the governing institution.”
“It’s one of the crucial moments. Financial fair play was established to increase stability in football, and it was successful. But times change.
“We have to adjust it and modernise and do something about the balance of the competition, because the gap between the small club and big clubs gets wider and wider. I don’t think we can stop that development, but we can slow it down. And we need to act now.”
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