Paris Saint-Germain have agreed a €155 million fee with Monaco for Kylian Mbappe and personal terms with the player, but have yet to convince Uefa that they will be able to comply with financial fair play rules if they sign the young Frenchman in the same window as paying €222 milllion for Neymar.
PSG, who finished second behind Monaco in the French league last season, have worked hard for the past week to try to convince their Ligue 1 rivals to let the talented 18-year-old go and while a deal has now been reached they have yet to get the transfer past Uefa.
Uefa is adamant that its FFP regulations work and the president, Aleksander Ceferin, said on Friday that it would punish clubs "severely" if they do not comply with the rules. "I am very serious," he said on Friday. "We will try to help [the clubs understand the rules]. We will try to advise them on FFP. But if they don't comply we will punish, and we will punish severely.
“I am not talking about [just] PSG. I am talking about every club in Europe. We are monitoring the situation, the transfer window is not closed yet. Trust me, we’re working on it.”
PSG were sanctioned for breaking FFP rules in 2014 after a sponsorship deal, arranged with Qatar’s tourist body, was deemed to have been of insufficient value to match the €180 million PSG received for it. Manchester City, also in 2014, were fined €60 million and told that instead of naming a squad of 25 players for the Champions League the following season they could name just 21 with eight of those homegrown.
FFP was introduced by Uefa seven years ago to stop clubs involved in European competition from spending more than they earn. The basic principle is that, beyond a small loss currently set at €5 million over three years, clubs’ outgoings must match their incomings. Since then, as well as exempting any expenditure on infrastructure or youth development, Uefa has also allowed owners to spend an additional €30 million of their own money over a rolling three-year period.
Monaco have already sold several members of their title-winning squad with Bernardo Silva, Tiemoue Bakayoko and Benjamin Mendy all joining Premier League clubs.
(Guardian service)
