Wednesday 2 March 2016

Manchester City/PSG and Galatasaray what is the difference?

Today UEFA decided to ban Galatasaray from all European competitions for one year. The decision comes a week after Galatasaray were eliminated from Europe by Lazio in the last 32 of the Europa League having played in the champions league group stage before christmas. The decision was made as Galatasaray have breached financial fairplay rules. The ban will affect the next competition Galatasaray qualify for and on current form it they may miss out on Europe anyway this season given they are 5th and outside the Europa league places in the Turkish Super Lig.

Galatasaray are not the first club to be banned from Europe under the breach of Financial fairplay (FFP). You might remember a few years ago that Málaga were banned from Europe for a similar offence. They had a two year ban reduced to one but still a ban nonetheless. Now Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) a few months later fell foul of FFP but miraculously they were not banned from competing in Europe. Instead Manchester city and PSG had squad reductions for their champions league campaigns along with a €50 million fine.

Málaga were banned in 2012
source: AFP
So my question here is what is the difference with Galatasaray/Málaga and Manchester City/PSG in falling foul of FFP. Being blunt about it, it's money. Manchester City and PSG can count of billionaire owners and big TV ratings in the champions league. Galatasaray an historically massive club in Turkey don't generate enough money to be considered part of the elite. Galatasaray also don't play in one of the money leagues in Europe so their presence in Europe won't be felt money wise by UEFA. However if they did ban say Manchester City, then they would lose out on the money they bring in by having the likes of Sergio Agüero, David Silva and Yaya Touré in their ranks. 
Galatasaray just don't have the same calibre of players. Sure they have Wesley Sneijder and Lukas Podolski but they don't generate millions upon millions in money for UEFA. 
As for Málaga well it's easy to ban an unfashionable poor Spanish club in the eyes of UEFA. They don't generate anywhere near enough money and so it's easy to ban them. 

Let's not forget that other clubs have been banned too but again they don't play in money leagues where UEFA generate massive hoards of cash. Do you think the likes of Dinamo Bucharest, Dynamo Moskva, Astra Giurgiu, CFR Cluj, Ekranas and Bursaspor matter to UEFA's cash cow. 
If your lucky enough to be among the elite and bring massive money in from TV deals in England, Italy, Spain, Germany and to a degree France then you'll be spared from bans, you'll get a fine that over time will be reduced and probably get a squad reduction in European competition but still be able to play. If your geographically out of the big five leagues, sorry but "rules are rules". 

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