UEFA is concerned about the new financial rules adopted by the Premier League, believing that they could widen the economic gap with other European championships. From next season, English clubs will apply the Squad Cost Ratio system, which allows teams to devote up to 85% of their income to squad costs, including salaries and transfers. In certain situations, this threshold could even reach 115%. For comparison, UEFA’s financial rules set a significantly lower limit, with a cap of 70% of revenue for clubs involved in European competitions.
According to UEFA, these rules could further strengthen the economic power of the English championship and increase the concentration of the best players in England. The Premier League already generates around a quarter of European football’s revenue and almost 40% of the highest-valued players play for its clubs. The European body fears that this increased spending capacity will push clubs in the rest of the continent to take more financial risks to remain competitive. For its part, the English league defends its reform, its general director Richard Masters estimating that this model should allow clubs which do not compete in European competitions to invest more in order to reduce the gap with the richest teams.
