Listen to the full interview above via the podcast
Financial Fair Play seems to be reaching some sort of endgame this week with the likes of Manchester City and Paris Saint Germain facing possible punishments for allegedly breaching the rules.
It is a complicated issue given the number of caveats in the rules but to enlighten us and to clarify where Manchester City stand in relation to these UEFA rules, we spoke to The Times and ESPN football writer Gabriele Marcotti.
City are in an interesting position given the scrutiny over their massive sponsorship deal with Etihad.
"The key here is related transactions. So in other words, you are the owner of a football club but you or your brother or mate also happen to own or control another business and he makes an enormous sponsorship with your club which is really a bogus sponsorship and a way of ploughing money into the club but calling it sponsorship," said Marcotti.
"That's why the likes of Manchester City and Paris Saint Germain - plus Zenit, Bayer Leverkusen and Wolfsburg potentially - have been looked at. That's why UEFA have to establish what is the fair value of this sponsorship. There's a bunch of metrics that are used to do this. But if Etihad are paying €40 million a year, they might look at it and say that no club the size of Manchester City receives €40 million from a sponsor and the most they get is €20 million so we're going to assess this as €20 million worth of revenue."
Clubs discover their fate in early May and Marcotti explained that they can accept those penalties or "settlement offers". But if they choose to fight, then the cases go to UEFA's adjudicatory chamber who will issue a final decision by mid-June, unless clubs appeal to the independent Court for Arbirtation of Sports (CAS) whose decision will arrive by August.
Marcotti also spoke about the danger that Financial Fair Play could eventually lead to a stratification at the highest level of European football.
He also explained the distinction between City, PSG and Chelsea on this issue.
