With the UEFA Financial Fair-Play on stand-by, one of the big questions of the transfer market has been whether it really exists the Financial Fair Play in France. The spectacular summer market that PSG has made, signing Messi, Achraf, Donnarumma, Sergio Ramos and Nuno Mendes, together with the 35 chips currently available to the Parisian team (five are goalkeepers) They put into question the functioning of the structures of French football.
To put in context, PSG has not broken the DNCG rules, which translated is the financial control body of the clubs in France. Although Leonardo presented in June an item of income and expenses in which he wanted to approach 180 million in sales (of which he has only obtained 9 in the entire market), those estimates were simple projections and not obligations. If we strictly pay attention to the functioning of the LFP and the DNCG, the PSG has not broken the rules, Although another question is whether to regulate the limit of tokens in France (there is none) or the external capitalization to extreme limits (also applied to Rennes, for example, which has spent 79 million and sold for 44 and spent 71 during the summer past and has Pinault as the owner of the club).
The only objective that the DNCG has is for the clubs to guarantee liquidity and solvency. In short, they have enough money to balance their accounts. If a team has losses of 250 million (like the PSG in the pandemic) and, if said team guarantees the financial body that it will inject money to alleviate the deficits, the DNCG is satisfied. There is no global norm for each team, but individual commitments of each club or owner attending to the financial needs of each structure.
To put in context, the Girondins de Bordeaux is one of the teams that best exemplifies what the DNCG is. The historic Frenchman was administratively demoted for two weeks after the abandonment of the American owners and the club’s declaration of bankruptcy. As Bordeaux had no funds to guarantee solvency, the DNCG decided to act ex officio. Weeks later, Gerard Lopez, a Hispanic-Luxembourg businessman who also acquired Lille for several seasons, decided to inject external capital (through an Investment Fund) and committed to having sales of € 40 million with the DNCG to be able to file. A commitment and an estimate that, although it may have variables, is independent of the rest of the teams, which acquire other types of commitments depending on what the economic results say. Bordeaux was finally able to sign without reaching said income, although with a balance net positive of 12 million.
The question is, is it urgent to change the financial structure that France has? In the absence of a specific and unanimous regulation for all clubs, any billionaire owner can inject a significant sum of money into a team that, although it carries a very high tax burden (Angers, for example, pay more taxes in France than Real Madrid in Spain, to contextualize), you are free to make the investments you want. France does not put limits on investments and that is why PSG, ensuring solvency and liquidity, has been able to have a historic summer despite the significant losses it had dragged in recent years. Leonardo’s words of selling for 180 million were not an obligation, although the DNCG was born with the intention that the accounts do not have large jumps between income and expenses during each season.
Without chip limits (in Spain, for example, there is a limit of 25 so as not to overload the salary bill), without a regulation applicable globally (each club has its own “rules” and “commitments” to guarantee solvency), in the It remains to be seen whether the LFP will seek a regulation from the DNCG, a body that few people know how it really works and whose use is becoming obsolete as the years go by.