August 10 – Neymar’s €222 million record-breaking move from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain has upset the balance of French football according to Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas.
Unlike PSG and to a lesser extent Monaco, Lyon has traditionally been cautious with its spending yet still managed to win six league titles on the spin between 2002 and 2008. However, that was before Qatari owners took over PSG and totally changed the landscape.
In an interview with France Football, Aulas added his voice to those who suggest Financial Fair Play needs to kick in to prevent excessive sums being spent by an elite few clubs to the detriment of everyone else.
“These type of transfers must be regulated,” he said. “ If Financial Fair Play does not fulfil its role at a European level, the state must be able to step in and take the decisions to check and verify where the funding for these sorts of things came from.”
“Since Michel Platini left UEFA, FFP has lost one of its biggest defenders because we must verify and control where financing comes from.”
“When we are faced with investors from Qatar, which generates huge revenues through gas and oil production, we can’t fight against that. It is completely disproportionate… These kind of signings can create a bubble which is capable of bursting at any time.”
“I’m not an anti-PSG figure. However, with the signing of Neymar it puts PSG’s budget at around €700 million.As the club doesn’t generate revenue to reach such high expenditure, this will unbalance a football economy that was already struggling in the first place.”
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