This week, UEFA pulled the “Go ask your mother” move… again.
After re-ruling in January, then Milan trying to talk some sense into them,
they further delayed their new ruling until that one was decided in the Court
of Arbitration for Sport. It seems they can’t rule properly on their own Financial
Fair Play guidelines to save their lives, but are becoming experts at
inhibiting Milan’s ability to rebuild and progress. They have literally put the
four-letter words into FFP.
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| Irony |
I don’t even have it in me to recap how many times UEFA have
delayed their rulings. Always delaying our moves in the mercato, and always
bringing in some bizarre reasoning for their rulings that they didn’t use for
other teams. Their disciplinary committee is so far out of touch with what
Financial Fair Play even means, let alone what is responsible and practical for
a team to be able to accomplish realistically.
To make matters worse, they don’t enforce their decisions
fairly. For example, as we talked about on the last podcast, Inter was recently released from their three year
settlement agreement after four years of sanctions, despite never meeting their
goals even one year. Whereas Milan have changed ownership twice and never been
offered a settlement agreement.
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| Bans, bans everywhere, and not a settlement agreement in sight |
This time, having given us a ruling in January that was
delayed six months after their initial summer ruling was overturned by the CAS,
they were expected to give us a decision on the 2017-18 Yonghong Li era within
the past two weeks. But this week, they deferred that decision, waiting to see
how the CAS would rule on their January decision. Kind of like when your
parents defer to each other so as not to have to answer your question. Their
initial decision would have given us three years to comply. In January, it was
down to two and a half. Now it is already at two years, and they are further timewasting
while being irresponsible. They are holding us to their timeframe, even when
the CAS determines their ruling was unfair in the first place, and now they are
running down the clock as a way to impose their unfair rulings after all.
The CAS is an independent body of sporting judges, and now
that we are forced to push our case through (since talking to UEFA did
absolutely nothing since January,) we will likely have a ruling from the CAS
relatively quickly, like within six weeks. But UEFA waits six months to
rule, despite being the governing body for the program they are administering. And
now, even when they have waited, they won’t even rule. That’s six months that
costs Milan precious time in the mercato, precious money in lawyer fees, and
precious time on their disciplinary clock that we are being held to. Now where
is the “fair” in that FFP?
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| Give yourselves a yellow for timewasting, UEFA |
Financial Fair Play is not about sport, and it’s not about
business. It doesn’t support responsibility in either world, and no one wins. UEFA
are anything but fair with their decisions, comparing
Inter and Milan’s treatment alone makes that obvious. But with their
embarrassing and unprofessional continued delays, it has become a complete
joke. Why must teams meet their goals within their timeframe when they can’t
even rule in a reasonable time? Why do they get to run down the clock when we
can’t even get a settlement agreement? For these and so many more reasons, UEFA
is a four-letter word.
This post inspired by the music of NIN’s
“Head Like a Hole”