One of the most used terms in football this summer is Financial Fair Play, particularly in the context of PSG and how it hasn’t bothered them in the slightest.
The Ligue 1 club have had one of the best transfer window performances in the history of football, signing Gini Wijnaldum, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Sergio Ramos and Lionel Messi as free agents along with Achraf Hakimi from Inter Milan for a fee over €60 million.
There have been several discussions about exactly how PSG are able to afford such high wages, with stars like Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, Marco Verratti and Marquinhos also in the squad. According to the Times, UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin is set to remodel the Financial Fair Play system to be based on that in the NBA.
In the basketball league, clubs that exceed their wage cap have to pay a ‘luxury tax’ of sorts. This tax amount is then collected and distributed amongst the other teams in the division to help them out with their own finances. Several NBA teams pay this amount if they have a good season, but it becomes risky when the players underdeliver.
The wage limit that teams will have to operate under is as of yet, unclear. Ceferin is expected to announce the change in the September Congress of UEFA, where he will go in depth about the details of the model and how it will be implemented to keep European clubs from spending too much to sign players.