A review of key Financial Fair Play cases through the lens of the CAS

In the five or six years that UEFA’s Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations (FFP / the Regulations)1 have been with us, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has had to consider a number of appeal cases. This has included, in the last couple of years, some break-even cases, as opposed to simply observing settlement agreements. There are also many other cases that relate to FFP that have never made it as far as the CAS, and indeed there are potentially many different cases coming down the rails.

This article recaps the history of FFP and focuses on some of the key cases that have been before the CAS. It is based on a speech that the author gave at the 7th International Congress on Football Law staged by the Spanish Football Association (RFEF) in November 2017. Specifically, it examines:

• The history of UEFA’s FFP regime

• The refusal of a licence

• Overdue payables

• Break Even

• The Queens Park Rangers case

• The Paris Saint-Germain and Neymar case

• Third Party Challenges