As per recent reports, UEFA punished Premier League giants Manchester United 300,000 euros on Friday for a break-even deficit while Spanish champions Barcelona must pay 500,000 euros for wrongly reporting profits.
Both clubs have received six-figure penalties as a result of breaking UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations.
According to a statement from UEFA, Manchester United reported “minor break-even deficits” and will be required to pay their fine.
UEFA has updated the 2009 FFP rules with a new monitoring system that prioritises financial sustainability for clubs and has moved away from placing the competitive balance on the pitch as an achievable goal.
Break-even requirements were implemented in 2013, requiring clubs to balance their spending with their revenues in order to avoid debt accumulation.
United responded to the issue by saying they were ‘disappointed’ with the outcome. “Manchester United accepts this fine for what UEFA acknowledges to be a minor technical breach of its previous Financial Fair Play rules.”
United stated that the error was caused by a change in the adjustment of losses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This reflected a change in the way that UEFA adjusted for COVID-19 losses during the 2022 reporting period, which allowed us to recognise only €15m of the €281m of revenues lost due to the pandemic within the FFP calculation.”
In any case, the Red Devils agreed with the fine and stated that they support the enforcement of FFP rules.
In the case of Barcelona, a harsher penalty was imposed since UEFA stated their negligence as “wrongly reporting, in the financial year 2022, profits on disposal of intangible assets (other than player transfers) which are not a relevant income under the regulations”.