UEFA: UEFA meets over Financial Fair play Penalties

UEFA will meet on Thursday to discuss and
approve penalties for less than 20
European football clubs who have been
found to have breached financial fair play
rules.
Two clubs thought to be involved but not
yet officially confirmed by UEFA are
Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain.
The investigatory chamber of UEFA (CFCB)
will meet over the next two days in Nyon,
Switzerland, and approve settlement offers
and penalties agreed with football clubs
they have found guilty of excessive
overspending.
UEFA and the clubs have to agree to the
penalties. If no agreement is made, then
the outstanding cases are referred to a
higher body within UEFA - the adjudicatory
chamber.
Settlement offers
will not be rubber-
stamped by the
investigatory
chamber until next
week and until
then, the clubs are
not expected to be
publicly named.
Manchester City are believed to be one of
the clubs involved and could face
sanctions for huge overspending under the
ownership of Sheikh Mansour. The club
and UEFA refuse to confirm or deny that
they are being investigated.
UEFA's Financial Fair Play Regulations
allow clubs to lose £37.2m after certain
exceptions are discounted.
City posted losses of £149m between
2011-14 after massive spending, which
included buying Sergio Aguero, Gael
Clichy, Javi Garcia, Samir Nasri and Matija
Nastasic.
Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United
have told Sky Sports News they are not
under investigation.
If a club agrees to accept a guilty charge
and accepts UEFA's sanctions, they could
face a cut to their squad and heavy fines.
This could leave them unable to register a
full 25-man squad for the Champions
League next season, potentially denying
them use of millions of pounds worth of
their own talent and hurting their ability to
recruit players this summer.
Clubs under investigation were given until
Thursday by UEFA to agree to a
"settlement offer" that both UEFA and the
club agree on.
If clubs cannot agree to accept the
penalties and their guilt, their case will
transfer to the CFCB's adjudicatory
chamber, which would assess the case
from scratch to see if they breached FFP
and, if so, what punishment to impose.
UEFA has previously said that fighting
charges would put a club at risk of a more
severe penalty, including expulsion from
the Champions League.
If City has been found guilty and agrees to
settle their case, FFP rules allow Premier
League rivals such as Arsenal and Everton
to challenge sanctions they deem too
lenient.
The other Champions League clubs could
argue that City's breach hampered their
chances of finishing third or fourth in the
table, and therefore harmed their European
qualification hopes.
Paris Saint-Germain is another club
reported to have been found guilty of
breaching FFP by the CFCB's investigatory
chamber.
The UEFA president, Michel Platini, told Le
Parisien last week: "Significant sanctions
will hit the big clubs. The first decisions
will be announced in early May.
"But if you expect blood and tears, you will
be disappointed. There will be some tough
things but, I think, no exclusions from
European competitions."