UEFA on Wednesday said further examination of French giants Paris Saint-Germain’s alleged flaunting of Financial Fair Play rules would have to await a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
In the latest revelation from Football Leaks, French sports daily L’Equipe said UEFA was considering ordering PSG to amend its accounts to drastically re-assess the value of its sponsorship contract with the Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA).
The Qatari-owned club originally declared the contract to be worth 100 million euros in the financial years of 2013-2014 and 2014-2015.
L’Equipe said UEFA’s financial oversight body was now insisting that sum should be reduced to 58 million euros.
The effect of the change would be to plunge the French champions heavily into deficit, meaning they could fall foul of UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.
That would leave PSG facing UEFA penalties, including a possible ban from the Champions League and other European competitions.
Under FFP rules, clubs cannot spend more than they earn in any given season and deficits must fall within a 30-million-euro limit over three seasons.
In September, UEFA announced it was re-opening its investigation into accusations that PSG had broken the FFP rules.
PSG, which spent 400 million euros on signing Brazilian star Neymar and French teenager Kylian Mbappe, reacted by lodging an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
A UEFA spokesman said, “We will have to wait for CAS’s decision on PSG’s appeal before looking at this issue.”
Concerning the allegations in L’Equipe, UEFA said: “We do not comment on specific cases.”
In the wake of the Football Leaks revelations, UEFA on Monday warned it might re-open probes into the finances of other clubs, including Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City.
