Summary: Daniel Geey of the Competition and EU Regulatory Law Group at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP joins up again with Anto to separate the theoretical from the practical application of Financial Fair Play cast against a vast landscape of European Union countries with numerous inequities in terms of commercial revenue, broadcasting rights, accounting procedures, national and local taxation as well as large differences in national labor laws. At the core of this discussion is really whether the practical limits of these regulations will become challenged at a fundamental level given these disparities and whether UEFA from a regulatory and competitive analysis has essentially erected a closed shop with regard to its most lucrative competition, the UEFA Champions League. One of the major talking points is the misguided perceptions regarded fair market value and related party transactions with respect to commercial and sponsorship relationships themselves, and if competition sponsors that cross index with actual football clubs like Gazprom should be subject to further inspection. We also examine whether the concept of Financial Fair Play in practice is a competitive insulator and how the concept of competitive balance has been substituted for the objective of economic sustainability, how the broadcasting revenue inequities are creating a huge chasm between European regions and how the complexities of tax policy are becoming more and more of a lightning rod given that clubs often do become corporate targets for reasons beyond just owning a football team and offer additional commercial benefits.
