“Il Financial Fair Play it is not fair because it helps the big ones”. So she had declared at the beginning of the season Jose Mourinho commenting on the news that the Roma had ended up under observation again UEFA for non-compliance with the parameters. Statement correct in form, much less in substance, given that his own Rome is one of the examples of what it is not fair the FFP. Because a club that earns money in three years 600 million euros and spends 1.2 billion without paying any consequences in termini sportsmengetting away with only economic fines, is just the opposite of principle of expenses appropriate to one’s possibilities which is at the origin of the concept of financial fair play. Roma this year was the second company, after the Paris Saint Germainto receive the highest penalty from UEFA for non-compliance with the parameters financial: 5 million euros, plus 30 probation. This means that if the company does not comply with the plan in the coming years cost containment presented will be forced to pay this additional amount. Given the results of his latest financial management, with losses of 200 million a year, the conditional sanction is almost certain.
In the 2021/22 season Roma presented a balance which came close to the record loss in the history of Italian football: 220 million euros. Red accounts are not one novelty in the yellow and red house, given that they have been produced for fourteen consecutive years losses. But in more recent seasons the surge has been substantial, with 204 million in 2019/20 and 185 in 2020/21. We then arrive at the 600 millionlast three years mentioned above, for a performance worthy of the Champions League of debt, given that in Europe in the same period only PSG accumulated losses greater, reaching 700 million. With the difference that the Franco-Qatarians have a turnover three times higher than that of Roma. The former have therefore come in (inflated, but that’s another matter) from elite clubs and expenses from top tier clubs, while the Giallorossi they spend like a high-end team (in fact they are in the European top 20 for outgoings) but having revenues from Ajax, i.e. from the continental middle class. Roma’s current wages amount to 169 million euros. Those of the opponents that separate it from the final of Europa League are respectively 41 (Feyenoord opponents of the Giallorossi in the quarterfinals), 63 (Bayer Leverkusen) e 5.8 (Union Sint Gillis).
The explosion of costs in Rome is easily explained. The company was under UEFA observation from 2015 to 2018, the year in which the market limits imposed for – let’s use a polite term – were lifted scarce virtuosity financial. The 2017/18 season is that of the semi-finals of Champions Leaguewith the elimination against the Liverpool after two semi-finals played evenly. The great help given by UEFA to Serie A by increasing the number of teams automatically qualified for the group stage of the Champions League to four prompted the then yellow and red leadership to raise the bar, increasing expenses and salaries in view of a permanent presence in the maxim competition European. But this did not happen and Roma found themselves with salary costs 60-70% higher than those of clubs belonging to the same category of saleswhich meanwhile has dropped by 42% in one year due to the pandemic. None, among the other big names in Serie A, presented such bad figures.
If you earn from stadio have always represented the Achilles’ heel of the club, and the situation – frustrating, and in this case the club is not to blame – does not seem able to change in the short term, the other cause of the economic bloodbath in the capital it derives from the market. In the three-year period 2018-2020, the market represented an important source of for Roma Finding resources, with sales that yielded between 100 and 150 million euros a year. Figures collapsed in the following years, with the change of ownership from James Pallotta to the group Friedkin. In their first year, the new American bosses achieve a great handicap with the sale of Schick for 16 million less than what had been paid, collecting overall since player trading less than half of the figures presented above. The following season the flow almost dried up, with only 16 million coming from assignments. In addition, early contractual terminations arrive with players such as Javier Pastore e Steven Nzonzi to cause further disbursement of money in an already complicated situation.
There are three factors that have played in favor of Rome in period analysed. The pandemic, which greatly relaxed the constraints envisaged by the FFP; there legal battle lost by UEFA against Manchester Citywho lifted the ban from Champions for the English forcing UEFA to review their own regulations on financial fair play; the timing for the entry into force of a new system check financialwhich will be fully operational in three years, resulting in the phase of transition in which watered down, weakened and scarcely effective rules remain in force. In a nutshell, until the 2026/27 season Roma will be able to go on doing what they want, because due to the lack of transparency in UEFA the modalities of application of sporting sanctions such as the block of the market or exclusion from European competitions. And this also applies to Inter e Juventuscompany heavily without debt which produce annual operating losses ranging between 150 and 250 million. Italian football should light a candle UEFA.