Sweeping changes are set to be announced to financial restrictions in football with confirmation just weeks away, according to new reports.
An article in the New York Times tonight suggests that the "soccer-related spending" of clubs "will not be able to surpass 70 percent of their income" under the revamped UEFA rules.
The new model is believed to be referred to as 'financial sustainability regulations', in a significant step away from the current 'financial fair play' handle. While FFP placed limits on the losses clubs were able to make, FSR are seemingly geared towards tieing spending more directly to revenues.
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AP claims that the proposals will be assessed at an executive board meeting of the European Club Association on Thursday this week, and a high-level UEFA summit next month is set to give them final sign-off.
Tariq Panja, author of the NYT piece, further explained the '70 percent' part of the plan on Twitter. He wrote: "The 70 percent of football spend corresponds to wages and amortisation of transfer fees for given season. Some clubs struggle to keep wages down to 70 percent. Won’t be easy for everyone."
In the last set of published accounts for Everton, the club's wage bill had risen to £164.8m. That meant in terms of salaries alone, the Blues had a wages to revenue ratio of 88.6 percent.
For Liverpool, the most recent wages to turnover figure stood at 64 percent with a total salary outlay of £314m.
The NYT piece suggests that some teams "backed by wealthy owners" had wanted the new spending ratio to be "as high as 85 percent". While it also claimed that elsewhere, especially from among German sides, there were calls for a much lower limit.
But the article adds: "To allow the teams to adjust to the new regulations, the new rules will be imposed over time: Clubs will be able to spend up to 90 percent of their revenues before that figure will be brought to its permanent 70 percent level within three seasons".
In terms of potential punishments, it is reported that "UEFA will have the right to impose both sporting and financial penalties for rule breakers, including fines, threat of expulsion and, for the first time, an option for demoting teams between the three competitions it currently operates. Another measure may also include point deductions under the revised format of the Champions League and the Europa League".
As with FFP, however, it remains to be seen whether the new scheme will be able to achieve its intended aims.
In another post on Twitter, journalist Tariq Panja said: "Biggest beneficiaries? Biggest clubs, particularly the English teams that can likely carry on spending. UEFA president had called for salary caps but EU regulations made that too difficult to be viable. "
