Manchester United have been fined €300,000 (£257,000) by Uefa for committing financial fair play breaches over a four-year period between 2019 and 2022.
The governing body’s club financial control body handed down the punishment after United reported what it describes as “a minor break-even deficit” during the financial years in question. They are among a number of clubs across the continent to be sanctioned in Uefa’s final monitoring of its old financial fair play rules, which were replaced by new regulations last year.
A United statement said: “While disappointed by the outcome, Manchester United accepts this fine for what Uefa acknowledges to be a minor technical breach of its previous financial fair play rules.
“This reflected a change in the way that Uefa adjusted for Covid-19 losses during the 2022 reporting period, which allowed us to recognise only €15m of the €281m of revenues lost due to the pandemic within the FFP calculation.
“Post-pandemic, the club’s revenues have recovered strongly and are forecast to reach a record level in the current financial year. The club continues to support the enforcement of rules to promote financial fair play and sustainability across domestic and European football.”
It is understood United’s stance is that they were unable to adjust for €47m of Covid losses in the 2022 monitoring period because of an unforeseen change in how Uefa treated those losses during the transition to its revised financial sustainability regulatory framework. The losses came on top of €234m of pandemic-related losses across 2019-20 and 2020-21.
Privately United would cite how the Premier League did allow for adjustments for 2022, enabling the club to comply with domestic FFP rules.
Among the other clubs fined were Barcelona, who are required to pay €500,000 for wrongly reporting profits on disposal of tangible assets, other than player transfers, which are not deemed a relevant income under the regulations.
Istanbul Basaksehir were fined €400,000 for not meeting targets they had been set for the 2022 financial year. Meanwhile, Konyaspor and Apoel were fined €100,000 for similar breaches to those carried out by United.
