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| The Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain club badges on their first team home shirts on March 30, 2021 in Manchester, United Kingdom. |
La Liga have filed a complaint against Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City after accusing the two clubs of “continuously breaching financial fair play regulations”.
PSG and City have both either retained or signed players that Real Madrid wanted to buy this summer. Kylian Mbappe elected to sign a new contract with PSG rather than move to Real, while City beat the Spanish club to the signing of Erling Haaland from Borussia Dortmund.
La Liga have now filed complaints to UEFA, alleging the two clubs of “irregular financing”. The complaint against City was lodged in April, while the one in reference to PSG was put in this week.
A statement from La Liga read: “La Liga this week filed a complaint with UEFA against PSG, which will join another against Manchester City in April, for understanding that these clubs are continuously breaching the current financial fair play regulations.
“La Liga considers that these practices alter the ecosystem and the sustainability of football, harm all European clubs and leagues, and only serve to artificially inflate the market, with money not generated in football itself.
“La Liga understands that the irregular financing of these clubs is carried out, either through direct injections of money or through sponsorship and other contracts that do not correspond to market conditions or make economic sense.
“The complaints against Manchester City before UEFA were made in April and this last week the one corresponding to PSG has been presented, although it is not ruled out that in the coming days extensions of some of these complaints will be made with the contributions of new data.”
PSG declined to respond formally but club sources told The Athletic they were entirely confident they were compliant with both French league and European rules on financial fair play.
They added that both Mbappe's new contract and Lionel Messi's signing were financially sound investments and that players would be leaving the club this window to help offset the salary commitment to Mbappe.
Additionally, the fact he has signed a new three-year contract also brings a resale value that PSG are likely to attract when and if they choose to sell the player in the future.
La Liga added that they are looking to use the French legislature and the European Union to take “administrative and judicial actions”. They are also looking to take action in Switzerland, for further action directed at PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi.
A source at the French club denied their suggestions Al-Khelaifi had conflicts of interest of his roles at PSG, UEFA, the European Club Association and BeIN Sports, insisting that BeIN has external legal counsel constantly review his meetings to check there is no conflict, and while Al-Khelaifi is prominent on the UEFA Executive Committee, he does not sit on a broadcasting committee.
