English Championship to Mirror UEFA Financial Fair Play Rules

English soccer’s second tier clubs of the Npower Championship are set to bring in their own money controls, mirroring UEFA’s own Financial Fair Play rules that are being introduced over the coming years.

According to Greg Clarke, chairman of the Football League, which governs the three divisions below the Barclays Premier League, clubs have voted in principle to adopt the system. The system will be proposed later today at the Football League’s AGM in Cyprus, where it will also be put forward that League One clubs move towards the introduction of the salary cap currently in force in League Two, where teams can spend a maximum of 60% of their turnover on wages.

Clarke told Press Association Sport: “The Championship clubs voted to look at financial fair play and in principle decided that was the road they wanted to go down. I think it’s essential, and the energy to solve this is coming from the clubs themselves. It’s a perfect storm in that a lot of things have come together to make this happen, including of course the level of debt in the game – £700 million in the Football League, most of that in the Championship – and big losses being racked up by the clubs.

“These things are never unanimous and a couple of the clubs would rather not have constraints on how much money they can spend. I would hope this could lead to a return to the days when local communities could own the clubs rather than rely on offshore benefactors. There is also a proposal for League One clubs to shadow the League Two system in the coming season with a view to their adopting it the season afterwards.”