By Jake Walton.
As you can tell from the title this blog is going to be about UEFA and their financial fair play rules as if you hadn’t heard, FK Crvena zvezda, more commonly known as Red Star Belgrade to you and me, have been banned from taking part in next years Champions League for breaking these Financial Fair Play rules and being in debt. This infuriates me for two reasons, firstly if a club is in debt that badly why would you impose sanctions on them that will not only take away a huge source of income from the club which in turn will probably lead to the team having to sell their best players and not being able to come close to the winning the league and getting into the CL again and secondly, the lack of consistency, or in my eyes and a lot of other peoples eyes no doubt, huge bias by UEFA towards the bigger teams. When PSG and Man City broke the FFP rules did you see them getting banned from the competition for a season? No, they get a fine which is spare change to the oil rich owners of the clubs and their squad size is cut down for next seasons competition. What a fucking punishment UEFA. Corruption like this ruins the game. In my eyes I think zvezda were used as a scapegoat if you were by UEFA. A team which UEFA wanted to make an example of just so they could exert their power and say to the world and to the even more corrupt bastards at FIFA ‘we’re punishing teams correctly that break Financial Fair Play!!!’ Another example that springs to mind of a team that were used as a scapegoat is Malaga as this season I believe they were banned from partaking in any European competition for 3 years for breaking the FFP. If you look at the finances of Red Star, Malaga, PSG and City both PSG and City are going to be breaking the FFP rules a hell of a lot more than Red Star and Malaga so why don’t they get punished severely? Simple, they are a big club. City and PSG bring more money into the CL than Red Star and Malaga, kicking both these clubs out of the competition would hurt the bank balance of UEFA no doubt so forget about the small teams, no-one cares about them, it’s all about the big teams who can bring in more £££’s.
On a side note, I watch Red Star’s games a fair bit and have been hearing about what will no doubt happen at the club because of the debts, best players being sold and I believe players not getting paid on time, no doubt this will have been worsened by the fact that UEFA banned them from the CL cutting their revenue stream down. Sad to see such a blatant disregard for such a well supported club, left in ruins who have won the Champtions League as recently as 1991. I personally hope to see Red Star back in the CL as soon as possible.
Crvena zvzeda celebrate winning the Champions League in 1991.
Under The Floodlights 