Football finance needs an overhaul: “Why would you fix your main costs for multiple years when you can’t fix your main revenues?”
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An architect of UEFA’s original financial fair play rules, former UEFA executive Alex Phillips says that future changes to rules should focus on making contracts more performance focussed and stopping clubs from hoarding talent.
On Newcastle takeover: “Contrary to what many in the West may believe there is a real football culture in Saudi Arabia, at least for men’s football, and there are some really good and sensible people involved in football there.”
Phillips says he holds little hope for Tracey Crouch’s “fan led” review: “Can you imagine a UK “independent” regulator refusing a rich oil state taking over a Premier League club? No, me neither.”
This is part 2 of the interview.
8 November 2021 - 2:26 PM
In part two of our exclusive interview with former UEFA executive, Alex Phillips, he talks about the future of financial fair play (a rule scheme he was one of the principal architects of), UEFA’s plans for a “luxury tax”, why some of the criticism of Saudi influence in football may be misplaced, and why he has little hope for Tracey Crouch’s “fan led” review of English football.
You were an architect of financial fair play. Have those rules devised a decade ago had their
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