UEFA boss goes mute over Manchester City ban

Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin has accepted that the financial fair play (FFP) rules might need a little rework. But Ceferin chose not to comment on Manchester City ’s two-year ban, saying the appeal process has to be respected.

On Tuesday’s UEFA congress held in Amsterdam, Ceferin stated that the body’s experts are figuring out ways of upgrading the controversial FFP rules.

While Manchester City was held a two-year ban from European competitions for “serious breaches” of those rules, but have the club has since applied for an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Critics of FFP suggested an idea and mentioned an idea of how to stop clubs getting into debt by spending beyond their means has been transformed into a means of preserving the traditional rich elite, and prevent clubs with wealthy owners – like City – from bettering themselves and challenging that elite.

However, Ceferin did not go into minute pieces of information about the nature of any possible changes but said:

“It’s too early to say how it will look in the future but we are thinking about it and will probably have to adapt. It has been very successful as a system, there are almost no losses in European football anymore and now we will probably have to adapt to different times. Our experts are in discussion but changes will not happen very soon, I assume.”

Later on, Ceferin was asked about Man City’s situation, which was based on hacked emails published by the website Football Leaks, and in which the Blues vigorously deny any wrongdoing.

“I don’t know the case and it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to (offer an opinion) even if I did know the case,” said Ceferin. I have not spoken with any of the (Club Financial Control Board) members before or after and didn’t see the case, before or after. As much as I’ve seen now, Manchester City has gone to CAS and let’s wait for the decision.”