Arsene Wenger: 'FFP is gone after UEFA softened rules'

By Tom Nightingale, Reporter | 29 August 2015

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger says that Financial Fair Play is dead after UEFA lifted the restrictions they had previously placed on PSG and Manchester City.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has claimed that UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations "have gone", lamenting the organisation's soft stance on the issue.

UEFA president Michel Platini revealed in May that the regulations could be relaxed, before the restrictions placed on Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain were lifted in July.

Wenger says that the fact that clubs have challenged FFP and threatened court action has resulted in UEFA softening the rules, something which the Frenchman believes has effectively led to the demise of the policy.

"It has gone," he told reporters when asked about FFP. "I have seen the signs coming from UEFA for a while now. I thought for a while FFP would happen but now it is not possible.

"The clubs threatened to go to civil court – not only through sports [courts]. That brought a lot of insecurity in the decision making of UEFA so they started to soften the rules a little bit.

"The last decision in July was about Paris St-Germain and then Manchester City and that opened completely the door."

Since UEFA lifted the restrictions on PSG and Manchester City, the French champions have signed Manchester United's Angel Di Maria for £44.3m, while City have spent over £80m on Raheem Sterling and Nicolas Otamendi, with Kevin de Bruyne set to complete a club-record £54m move to the Etihad this weekend.