Public Interest of Professional Football in Europe under the UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Sustainability Regulations

Abstract

In response to the traditional European football's hierarchy and competitive landscape of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), as well as the long-term development of fair competitive balance in the UEFA's European football, the UEFA fundamentally reformed its regulation of financial stability. Therefore, the new Financial Sustainability Regulation (FSR) has been introduced from June 2022. The new FSR improves competitive balance in UEFA’s European football market. These rules replaced the UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations (FFPR) from June 2022. The UEFA’s approach to reforming the competitive landscape recognises and protects the foundations on which the UEFA’s competitive balance success as a main aim of bringing financial stability to European football is built: consistently common financial regulatory standards of UEFA with 3 key pillars being monitored: solvency, stability and cost control. These will ensure the benefits from transparency obligations of the professional football clubs, proportionate regulation and that business of UEFA professional football club competitions benefit from sustainable benchmark, appropriate game protection and from a sector that embraces UEFA’s business and commerce.  This article is about the relationship between FSR and protection of the UEFA’s football competition business. Its purpose is to define each area of FSR, to delineate the boundary between them, to show how they interact with each other, and to show how they support one another as the two component parts of an overarching unity: UEFA’s effective European football competition ruling. This paper proposes a documentary methodology which can provide a unifying focus for a wide range of background and essence of the FSR. It discusses current relationship of CLR (UEFA Club Licensing Regulations) and the FSR. It delivers regulatory procedures under the FSR. It also analyse these viewpoints before coming to a conclusion about defining the representation of the financial sustainability of European football clubs in European football as a European football interest.