Vincent Kompany has claimed Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules were simply an attempt by the established order of big clubs to prevent the likes of Manchester City from competing with them. “That’s how I look at it anyway,” Kompany told The Sunday Telegraph ahead of Sunday’s derby against Manchester rivals United, who belong to that old order.
“If you go into the business world you can’t say to anyone they cannot invest. I understand the fans have to be protected, the clubs have to be protected but plans need to be accepted.
“You win things; you get more fans. You get more fans; you create more revenue. That’s not a stupid way of thinking of investing in a business. I do understand there needs to be regulation but I just wonder what is going to change at the top? When I came to England it was just four clubs at the top. Four. The same top four all the time and that’s changed now.”
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City fell foul of the Uefa rules last year which led to a conditional £49 million fine – most of which they can claw back eventually by complying – and restrictions on their European squad and incoming transfers which manager Manuel Pellegrini has stated hampered their chances of competing this season.
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The club is expected to comply this season and said it would have done so anyway during the “natural course” of its “planned business operations”. United had a net transfer spend of £122 million last summer, around four times City’s figure.
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Uefa dispute the claim that the rules simply support the status quo, arguing they were vital to keep a check on spending and ensure clubs were run on proper business lines. But Kompany, the City captain suggested that the rules were also intrinsically unfair on responsible, ambitious owners such as the Abu Dhabi Group who acquired the club in 2008 and have invested heavily since.
“What you do is actually protect the few who already have the things geared up to create enough revenue for them to invest more than anyone else,” Kompany said.
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“I think there needs to be a format that people respect. When you get into a club you need to subscribe to be in there for a number of years, you need to maybe commit to a certain number of regulations but in this case who are you protecting?
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“That’s my question. If City wouldn’t have done what they did four of five years ago it might have been too late.”
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In a wide-ranging interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Kompany said: “Look at what this club has done for the community, what this club has meant to – I suppose we pay a lot of tax in the UK as well and that money has been invested by, in our case Abu Dhabi, and it has a massive impact also on the city of Manchester what clubs like this can do when they are being established like our club.”
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