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Manchester City had their big spending in the transfer market curbed by Uefa.

The financial fair play rules that led to Manchester City being handed a huge fine by Uefa last season are set to be relaxed.

Uefa is expected to announce next month that the FFP rules will be eased to allow more owner investment, a move that will aim to nullify more than 10 legal challenges that the European governing body is now facing.

Some clubs including City have argued that the FFP rules favour the rich established clubs because they effectively prevent wealthy owners taking over a club and pumping in huge sums of money over a short period.

That scenario happened with City and Paris Saint-Germain and both were handed £49m fines and transfer restrictions last season and the European Clubs’ Association has been putting pressure on Uefa for a change.

The Uefa president Michel Platini has revealed that some of the rules will be “eased” and the lawyer leading one of the legal challenges against the FFP system has responded by welcoming the move.

Platini told the French radio station RTL: “The world is two-faced but we will say this openly: I think we’ll ease things, but it will be the executive committee who will decide if it is to be eased or something like that, and the outcome will be known by the end of June.

“I think the regulations have been very good and it is the clubs who voted for FFP.

“But the French press say it is not right that [Chelsea owner Roman] Abramovich can buy many players and in France they cannot buy them. But if the Qataris had bought AC Milan the French would also say we should make financial fair play even tougher. As it is, the Italians wanted it eased.”

One source close to the negotiations said: “Many clubs want change – the current system means those who have more will always have more, and those who have less will always have less.”

Jean-Louis Dupont, the lawyer leading the legal action against Uefa, said in a statement: “We welcome the announcement of a change in the rules in line with the demands expressed by our clients in their various legal actions.

“When the exact content and scope of these changes are known, we will consider with our clients how this development, which on first sight appears favourable, is likely to meet their legitimate expectations and influence the conduct of ongoing actions.”

Payments to agents acting on international transfers for clubs rose to £155m ($236m) in 2014 according to Fifa figures, with a booming English transfer market accounting for by far the largest slice.

The study of the market in 2014 showed that despite the introduction of Uefa’s financial fair play rules, the booming broadcast market and growing commercial opportunities enabled English clubs to carry on spending.

One in four dollars spent globally on international transfers was allocated to English clubs and more than one in three dollars paid to agents originated from England.

Payments to agents acting on behalf of clubs have risen on average 27% year on year since 2011, when the total stood at $131m.

Of an overall transfer market that broke the $4bn barrier for the first time, English clubs spent a record $1.17bn. The huge disparity in spending between the big European leagues and the rest is reflected in the fact the money spent by English clubs on overseas transfers was more than a quarter of the total.

The second biggest spender, Spain, bought players for a total of $700m and the third, Germany, for $327m. The amount spent in France fell from $421m to $221m as the realities of FFP hit Paris Saint-Germain and other clubs such as Monaco put the brakes on their spending.


The figures, compiled by Fifa’s transfer matching system, the electronic marketplace that underpins all international transfers, show that more than a fifth of all transfers across borders in 2014 involved at least one intermediary.

That represents a reversal of the trend between 2011 and 2013, when the number of transfers involving agents dropped year on year.

Of the total spent on paying intermediaries, English clubs shelled out $87m, a $12m increase on 2013 and more than a third (37%) of the overall total.

The TMS system, put in place seven years ago to monitor and register international transfers, requires the declaration of payments to intermediaries acting on behalf of clubs, but not to players’ agents.

Mark Goddard, the general manager of Fifa TMS, said it was impossible to say what effect the recent decision to ban third-party ownership would have on the market.

“We’ll see what impact the new regulations have but we’ll still continue to record the so-called intermediary commissions and what the effect is,” he said. “There’s a lot of speculation.”

The 2014 report also identified a so-called “World Cup effect” where the value of transfers involving players of countries who overachieved increased. Transfers featuring Costa Rica players, for example, reached $10m in 2014 compared with $1m the year before.

Of those teams that reached the quarter-finals or beyond, there was an 18% increase in the volume of players of those nationalities signed by overseas clubs compared to the previous year. Taken together, the value of players from those nations who reached the quarter finals rose by 27% after the tournament when compared to 2013.

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Liverpool's Brendan Rodgers, left, and Chelsea's José Mourinho, right, both had issues from a fiery Capital One Cup semi-final.


Brendan Rodgers accused Diego Costa of deliberately stamping on Emre Can and Martin Skrtel during a fiery Capital One Cup semi-final second leg that his Liverpool team lost narrowly to Branislav Ivanovic’s extra-time goal for Chelsea.

The Liverpool manager did nothing to conceal his unhappiness at Costa, who could face disciplinary proceedings from the Football Association because the referee, Michael Oliver, took no action on either occasion. A ban would potentially rule the striker out of Saturday’s Premier League match at home to Manchester City.

Skrtel could also be in trouble with the FA after a photograph emerged of him making an apparently offensive gesture.

The Chelsea manager, José Mourinho, offered a passionate defence of Costa, insisting that each of the flashpoints had been entirely accidental. He warmed to a familiar theme when he accused Sky TV of waging a campaign against his club.

Mourinho was furious that the pundit Jamie Redknapp had criticised Costa for being “bang out of order” and having “put his studs in for a certain red card”, as Sky played footage of the striker’s evening with the tag line “Diego Costa crimes”.

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The Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, says there are ‘grounds for suspicion that international transfers of assets with connections to Switzerland took place’. Photograph: Harold Cunningham/Getty Images

In a further twist to its farcical attempt to deal with corruption allegations surrounding the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding race, Fifa has lodged a criminal complaint against certain individuals involved with the Swiss authorities.

Fifa’s president, Sepp Blatter, lodged the complaint at the behest of the German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, whose summary of Michael Garcia’s 430-page investigation was disowned by the American attorney. The full report will be made available to the Swiss attorney general in Berne, who will decide whether criminal charges should follow.

( Ugh. )

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Nigeria won the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations and will hope to defend their title in Equatorial Guinea. Photograph: Armando Franca/AP

Equatorial Guinea, one of Africa’s smallest countries, will replace Morocco as hosts of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations finals, the Confederation of African Football (Caf) confirmed on Friday.

Morocco wanted the tournament postponed over fears of a spread of the deadly Ebola virus but the Caf refused and on Tuesday stripped the north African country of the hosting rights.

The oil-rich Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea hosted the 2012 finals with their neighbours Gabon but will take on the 16-team tournament on their own from 17 January to 8 February.

It is not clear whether the new hosts will be able to play in the tournament. Equatorial Guinea were disqualified from the preliminaries for cheating.

Caf said the decision on the new hosts was made after a meeting in Malabo on Friday between Equatorial Guinea’s president, Teodoro Obiang, and the Caf president, Issa Hayatou.

“The head of state of Equatorial Guinea agreed to host the competition. As a result, the Caf executive committee confirm that the tournament will go ahead and Equatorial Guinea will compete as the host nation,” a statement from African soccer’s governing body said.

Equatorial Guinea had been disqualified from the preliminaries in August for fielding an illegible player.

Matches will be held at four venues in Bata, Ebebiyin, Mongomo and the capital Malabo. In 2012, the tournament was hosted in Malabo and Bata while the draw for the finals will be in Malabo on 3 December.

“Caf wishes to express its sincere thanks to the Equatorial Guinean people, its government and particularly president Obiang,” the statement concluded.

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Of course, a dictatorial country with one of the worst human rights records in Africa get to host. Not to mention, they cheated during the qualifiers. Hmmm, I sense a pattern here.