Clearly, John Textor seemed to have a lot on his plate these last few days. Also present at the Business of Football Summit organized in London by the Financial Times, the American shot on sight. Paris Saint-Germain took a beating because of its undivided domination in Ligue 1, but the capital club was not the only one to be scratched. The owner of Botafogo, OL, Molenbeek and Crystal Palace took advantage of his speech to pay for the Premier League!
The reason ? The boss of the Eagles (13th in the ranking) believes that the governing body of the English championship is doing everything to favor the biggest teams. “It doesn’t matter if you have a billion dollars in cash in a wheelbarrow, you’re not allowed to spend it”, he said to begin with. Annoyed, Textor believes that the financial fair play of the Premier League (which requires clubs not to have losses exceeding 105 million pounds sterling (around €123 million, editor’s note) over three seasons) is not fair and that the problems encountered by Everton (who received a ten-point penalty ultimately reduced to six) and Nottingham Forest do not surprise him.
Textor denounces favoritism
“It is clear that the rules are designed to ensure that clubs which do not generate significant revenue cannot catch up. Evangelos Marinakis, the owner of Nottingham Forest, has said he has plenty of money to finance his team, but he is not allowed to. If he spends too much and does what the fans want, someone comes to take away his points? It is not normal “he declared, before going even harder.
“Financial Fair Play is a fraud that says it’s about sustainability. Sustainability should be about the quality of your balance sheet, not ratios to your profit-loss differential. There is no one who thinks this makes sense. We have three billionaires in our ownership group (at Crystal Palace), maybe more. We don’t have the right to spend as much as the top 6 teams.” The message got through. It remains to be seen whether this will be followed by changes.
