Models of Control and Regulatory Divergence

This article details the operational mechanics and statutory bases of financial governance across six major European football leagues, including the Dutch Eredivisie. 

The analysis reveals two fundamental approaches to compliance: the Proactive Model (exemplified by Spain and France), which mandates pre-season budget approval and hard spending caps to ensure immediate stability and prevent future deficits; and the Reactive/Audit Model (seen in England and historically under UEFA’s FFP), which relies on retrospective compliance with multi-year loss thresholds, potentially culminating in post-factum sporting sanctions, such as points deductions.

A trend emerging across Europe is the move toward Statutory Independence, where governments are increasingly intervening to create state-backed regulators (as in England and Italy). This political shift is driven by the growing recognition that club heritage and long-term financial resilience represent a public interest that self-regulating bodies, such as leagues and federations, have proven unable to safeguard adequately.

The Regulatory Superstructure: UEFA’s Financial Sustainability Framework

Evolution from Financial Fair Play (FFP) to Financial Sustainability Regulations (FSR)

The current financial regulatory regime established by UEFA is codified under the UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Sustainability Regulations (FSR). These rules represent an evolution from the earlier Financial Fair Play (FFP) framework, which was officially agreed upon by UEFA’s Financial Control Panel in September 2009.

The original philosophy behind these regulations is to prevent professional football clubs from incurring unsustainable financial burdens by spending more than they earn in the pursuit of competitive success, thereby protecting their long-term viability.

The initial impetus for FFP was explicitly defensive, driven by the alarming trend that 50% of clubs were losing money, with debt levels rising. Former UEFA President Michel Platini emphasised the need to “stop this downward spiral” and assist clubs in adopting market principles by “living within your means”. 

Furthermore, the FFP framework was seen as a necessary intervention to curb “financial doping,” addressing concerns about external sources injecting disproportionate amounts of capital into smaller clubs to gain immediate competitive advantage. Implementation started at the outset of the 2011/12 football season. 

While UEFA uses FSR for the new regulations, it also uses this acronym for “Football and Social Responsibility.” Domestically, the English FA Premier League currently utilises the comparable term Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

 Core Financial Compliance Metrics

The FSR establishes several critical pillars for ensuring club financial health. The break-even requirement is central, allowing clubs to incur losses of up to €60 million over a three-year monitoring period.  A crucial condition attached to this threshold is that any losses exceeding revenue must be entirely covered by the club’s owners through permanent equity or non-debt mechanisms.

Beyond losses, the solvency requirement imposes strict, non-negotiable obligations on clubs regarding the settlement of overdue payables. Clubs must demonstrate that they settle debts to key stakeholders, including tax authorities, employees (such as players and staff wages), and other football clubs (transfer fees), within specified timeframes.

Failure to meet these mandatory solvency requirements usually triggers immediate sanctions, highlighting the regulatory body’s priority in maintaining transactional integrity within the football ecosystem.

With a growing realisation of the inherent risk of systemic collapse, such adherence to agreed or imposed timetables is critical.

Squad Cost Ratio (SCR) Mechanism and Compliance Tension

The FSR introduced the Squad Cost Ratio (SCR) as a new and crucial mechanism for imposing better cost control over expenditure related to competitive elements of the club. 

The SCR limits a club’s spending on squad costs, which are broadly defined to include player and coach wages, associated transfer costs, and agent fees, to a percentage of the club’s relevant revenue.

This rule is being phased in to allow clubs adequate time for structural adjustments, particularly regarding large existing player contracts. The spending threshold was set at 90% of club revenue in the 2023/24 season, dropping to 80% in 2024/25, before the permanent ceiling of 70% of club revenue is applied from the 2025/26 season onwards.

This move represents a strategic regulatory shift for UEFA, aligning its framework closer to the hard-cap philosophies employed by proactive domestic leagues, moving beyond auditing deficits to actively managing the cost-to-revenue structure.

However, a complexity arises in the operational tension between UEFA’s FSR and domestic rules, such as the Premier League’s PSR. Under FSR, clubs are allowed up to €60 million in losses over three years (if covered by owners).

Meanwhile, the Premier League’s PSR restricts losses to £105 million over the same period, a significantly higher threshold (approximately €123 million). This difference means a club could technically comply with one set of rules while simultaneously breaching the stricter additional set.

UEFA Sanctioning Regime

Sanctions for FSR non-compliance are severe and predefined, reflecting UEFA’s authority as the gatekeeper to their lucrative European competitions. The penalties available range from financial fines, the withholding of European competition prize money, and restrictions on player registration (transfer bans). The severest available penalty is disqualification or suspension from the European competitions. This sanction would represent a major competitive and financial blow, demonstrating UEFA’s leverage over participant clubs.

England (Premier League): Reactive Sanctioning and the Shift to Statutory Authority

 The Current Landscape: Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR)

The existing financial regulatory framework in the Premier League operates under the Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR). These rules impose economic constraints aimed at preventing clubs from accumulating excessive debt and sustaining large losses.

 Clubs are prohibited from sustaining adjusted losses exceeding £105 million over a rolling three-year period.

The compliance protocol is defined by specific thresholds. If a club’s losses exceed £15 million, the club must provide the league with projected accounts extending two subsequent seasons (T+2) and evidence of secure funding, which must not be sourced from loans.

 If a club’s calculation shows losses exceeding the £105 million threshold, the club is formally considered in breach of the rules, and the Premier League is mandated to refer the case to an independent Commission for adjudication.

The standard sporting punishment for PSR breaches is now established as the deduction of league points. This mechanism is highly punitive, as demonstrated by the serious points deductions imposed on Everton in 2024, which placed the club in immediate peril of relegation and potentially financial collapse.

This retroactive punitive system contrasts with the preemptive budgetary controls seen elsewhere, allowing for greater financial flexibility but resulting in delayed, potentially catastrophic competitive consequences.

Scrutiny of Commercial Transactions and Revenue Quality

The Premier League has recently updated the PSR to address growing concerns regarding commercial deals that may not reflect fair market value, particularly those involving club owners.

 This new scrutiny demonstrates that the regulatory battleground has shifted from  monitoring total losses to verifying the quality and authenticity of the revenue used to offset those losses.

The regulations now clamp down on two key types of transactions: Associated Party Transactions (APTs), which are deals entered into with parties associated with the club’s ownership, and Threshold Transactions, which are commercial arrangements exceeding £1 million a year or 5% of the club’s annual revenue. Clubs are obligated to submit details of both types of transactions to the Premier League. The league then undertakes an assessment of the fair market value (FMV) of the arrangement. 

If the transaction value is deemed inflated, the league has the power to re-state the value of the transaction for the purposes of PSR compliance. This assessment relies on three core information strands: an independent expert’s assessment, the information provided by the club, and comparable evidence from similar transactions drawn from an anonymised database created by the Premier League.

This increased reliance on complex valuation methods makes the calculation of the ‘allowable loss’ more subjective and increases the administrative burden on both the clubs and the regulator. 

Furthermore, the reliance on subjective valuations creates inherent ambiguities, making regulatory decisions potentially vulnerable to lengthy legal appeals and litigation by aggrieved clubs.

The Future Structure: The Independent Football Regulator (IFR)

The UK government has decided to address the structural shortcomings of league self-regulation by introducing the Independent Football Regulator (IFR), which has been established by the Football Governance Bill.

 This governmental intervention reflects the perception that self-regulatory bodies have failed to sufficiently ensure the long-term financial resilience and good governance necessary to protect the public interest invested in clubs. It also removes the obvious conflict of interests between being both the promoter and regulator.

The IFR will operate a statutory licensing system with significantly enhanced powers. These powers are extensive and holistic, moving well beyond traditional financial auditing. They include :

• Statutory Owners’ and Directors’ Tests: The IFR will apply strengthened tests to ensure that the individuals overseeing a club are suitable and capable of protecting fans from irresponsible ownership.
• Enhanced Financial Regulation: The IFR is mandated to improve the financial resilience of clubs across the entire football pyramid, ensuring that clubs adopt sensible financial strategies and mitigate risks that could jeopardise their future.
• Protection of Club Heritage: Crucially, the IFR will place specific requirements on fan engagement and mandate protections on club heritage. It will also require clubs to seek regulatory approval if they propose the sale or relocation of their home ground.
• Governance Standards: The IFR will publish a football club corporate governance code, against which all licensed clubs must report their adherence.

The creation of the IFR signals a fundamental shift toward greater, stronger, governance, moving away from the league rulebook to statutory law. This intervention is designed to address non-commercial but critical aspects, such as club heritage and long-term stability, which the purely financial PSR framework largely neglected.

Spain (La Liga): Proactive Economic Control via the Squad Cost Limit (LCP)

Regulatory Structure and Statutory Basis

LALIGA employs one of the most proactive and stringent financial control systems in Europe. LALIGA operates under the legal regime established by Spain’s Act on Sport and the Royal Decree on Federations. LALIGA’s governance structure necessarily includes the President and the General Assembly.

 The President, currently Mr. Javier Tebas Medrano, and the Chief Corporate Officer, Mr. Javier Gómez Molina, are prominent figures in the institutional oversight.

Financial control is primarily executed through LALIGA’s Economic Control Department, which fields a dedicated team of analysts and utilises the crucial LALIGA Validation Body. 

The fact that LALIGA integrates its economic control functions directly within its own management structure, unlike the independent commissions used in the UK or France, promotes operational efficiency and guarantees real-time intervention capabilities.

 For appeals, clubs can escalate discrepancies to the Financial Supervision Committee of LALIGA, then potentially to a UEFA Appeals Committee (or Spanish Football Federation, RFEF), and finally to ordinary courts.

The Squad Cost Limit (LCP) Mechanism

The LCP is the defining mechanism of LALIGA’s financial control. It represents the maximum amount that each club can spend on its squad, typically covering the 2025/26 season following the summer transfer market.

The scope of expenditure included in the LCP is comprehensive, covering costs for the registrable squad (players, manager, assistant manager, fitness coach) and the non-registrable squad (reserves and youth systems).

 The specific financial items included are:

• Fixed and variable salaries.
• Social security and collective bonuses.
• Acquisition costs, including agents’ commissions.
• Amortisations, defined as the annual calculation of the player’s purchase amount over the length of their contract.

The explicit inclusion of amortisation provides LALIGA with a powerful structural control over transfer spending. Clubs cannot finance high-cost signings via long-term debt without that cost being immediately factored into the current season’s LCP via amortisation, thereby discouraging excessive leveraging for player acquisitions.

The Proactive Validation Process and Financial Stability

The defining feature of the Spanish system is its proactive nature. Clubs propose their desired LCP limit in compliance with the Budget Preparation Regulation.

However, the LALIGA Validation Body has the ultimate responsibility to approve the proposed limit or, critically, to rectify it up to the maximum amount that guarantees the club’s financial stability.

 This pre-approval mechanism serves to prevent financial issues before they materialise, in sharp contrast to the retrospective penalty system of the Premier League. For instance, the limits published for the 2024/2025 season show vast differences in approved spending capacity, such as Real Madrid FC at €754.8 million versus Valencia FC at €74.6 million.

 The underlying principle is the so-called 1:1 rule, requiring clubs to spend one euro only for every euro earned, ensuring expenditure is tightly tethered to genuine revenue.

Clubs must adhere to stringent financial transparency requirements, including the submission of Annual Accounts, detailed Budget information, an Economic Financial Report, and data on their Squad Cost Limit.

They must also submit Informes CSD (reports from the High Council for Sport) on the economic-financial situation of men’s professional football, demonstrating a link between the league’s economic management and national regulatory oversight.

Germany (Bundesliga): Governance Through Member Ownership and Comprehensive Licensing

The 50+1 Rule

The stability of German football is fundamentally underpinned by the 50+1 rule, a governance structure designed to preserve club identity and financial prudence. To obtain a license from the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL) to compete in the Bundesliga or 2. Bundesliga, the parent club (the members’ association) must hold 50% of the voting rights plus one additional vote in the entity that operates the professional football team.

The regulatory goal is to ensure that club members retain overall control, thereby protecting the clubs from the overwhelming influence and possible short-term risk appetite associated with external private investors.

Prior to 1998, clubs were exclusively run as not-for-profit organizations owned by members’ associations. While the 1998 ruling allowed clubs to incorporate their professional teams, the 50+1 rule ensures that the ethos of member-ownership prevails. This structure institutionalises a long-term, risk-averse mindset, making financial prudence an artifact of the governance structure itself, rather than solely a result of imposed financial caps. This greatly reduces the reliance on a single, volatile investor, which has historically contributed to financial collapses in other leagues.

Exceptions to the rule exist for clubs that have been continuously majority-owned by a parent company for more than 20 years, such as Bayer 04 Leverkusen (owned by Bayer) and VfL Wolfsburg (owned by Volkswagen).

DFL Licensing System Scope

The DFL Licensing System is comprehensive and wide ranging, extending well beyond  financial solvency. The process involves a thorough assessment of the clubs’ financial statements, demanding that clubs demonstrate their ability to meet all financial obligations for the entire upcoming season.

Beyond finance, the licensing system includes explicit requirements that serve the long-term strategic health of German football. Clubs must adhere to rigorous stadium standards (infrastructure) and, crucially, are mandated to invest in youth academies for the development of young players.

 This integrated approach means that failures in non-financial areas, such as inadequate youth development infrastructure, can jeopardize the financial license, making it a significant strategic regulatory tool.

Financial Stability and Enforcement

The 50+1 rule, combined with the stringent DFL licensing regime, is widely recognized for ensuring that German clubs rank among the most financially stable in Europe. There is a counter argument that the 50+1 rule makes it difficult for German clubs to compete internationally. 

Clubs facing financial difficulty are forced to undertake timely financial adjustments within the regulated framework, making relegation due to financial collapse an extremely rare occurrence.

Failure to meet the licensing criteria can result in a range of escalating sanctions. These include the imposition of regulatory conditions, financial penalties, points deductions, or the most severe outcome: denial of the professional license, which effectively leads to automatic relegation. The threat of license denial positions the DFL as one of the most powerful ultimate gatekeepers of competition integrity in European football.

France (Ligue 1): Centralized Auditing and Preventative Budgetary Control

The Direction Nationale du Contrôle de Gestion (DNCG)

Financial governance in France is primarily overseen by the Direction Nationale du Contrôle de Gestion (DNCG). The DNCG is defined as an independent commission but is housed operationally by the Ligue de football professionnel (LFP).

 This structure grants the commission the necessary legal impartiality while ensuring direct access to the league’s operational data.

The statutory mandate and regulatory powers of the DNCG are established by state law, specifically Article L. 132-2 of the Ordonnance n° 2006-596, which relates to the legislative part of the French Code du Sport.

 This firm legal foundation ensures the DNCG’s decisions are authoritative. The DNCG is headed by a President, such as Jean-Marc Mickeler.

Scope of DNCG Control and Vetting

The DNCG employs a meticulous and centralised audit process. At the end of each season, it reviews the accounts of all professional and semi-professional teams across the top five French divisions. The annual audits are comprehensive, scrutinising budgets, staffing, financial contract terms, and sponsorships.

Based on these audits, the DNCG performs a crucial gatekeeping function: it determines whether to admit (license) a club to the French League for the upcoming season.

 This proactive vetting establishes the DNCG as a model of “Hard Financial Control,” preventing significant financial issues before a season even begins, thereby minimising the need for disruptive retrospective sanctions.

Preventative Powers and Sanctions

The DNCG’s powers are uniquely preventative. It is empowered to impose binding conditions on clubs to ensure stability. These measures can include placing limits on player contracts, enforcing budgetary restrictions, and even imposing salary caps. This ability to directly control key cost drivers like salaries contrasts with the limits of most other regulators, though it is philosophically similar to the LCP mechanism in Spain.

The disciplinary measures for non-compliance are severe and comprehensive:

• The imposition of transfer embargoes or limitations on the number of first-team players.
• Fines, which can be doubled if the situation remains unregulated after a formal notice.
• The non-homologation of new contracts during one or more seasons.
• Most critically, for serious violations, the DNCG has the power to mandate demotion to a lower league or even complete expulsion from the French league system. The DNCG can also modify the number of teams in a competition based on financial circumstances.

This system prioritises timely financial correction, making the chaotic, post-factum points deductions seen in other leagues a less frequent necessity.

Italy (Serie A): Internal Oversight and the Political Push for State Intervention

COVISOC: Structure and Current Limitations

The current primary financial supervisory body in Italian football is the Commissione di Vigilanza sulle Società di Calcio (COVISOC). COVISOC is established by Article 78 of the Norme Organizzative Interne della FIGC (NOIF) and functions as an internal body of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC).

 It is typically composed of a president and four members.

COVISOC’s responsibilities include monitoring the financial health of Italian soccer clubs and the essential administrative task of registering teams for each football season.

 However, its operational power is often described as limited, primarily holding consultative and proposal powers within the FIGC structure. This structure, relying heavily on internal oversight, has been viewed politically as insufficient to guarantee long-term financial resilience.

Proposed Statutory Reform and Government Agency

In response to perceived regulatory failures, the Italian government, led by the Minister for Sport and Youth, Andrea Abodi, has proposed a draft Sports Decree.

 This initiative aims to reform professional sport governance by establishing a new, government-run agency to supervise the finances of all Italian soccer and top-tier basketball teams, effectively replacing or superseding COVISOC.

The proposed new agency would be endowed with significantly enhanced, direct statutory powers, including the authority to:

• Monitor club budgets.
• Request extensive documentation and conduct regulatory inspections.
• Directly control the registration of teams.

This political initiative represents a clear acknowledgment of regulatory lag in Italian football, recognising that the internal, federation-led model has failed to prevent structural financial fragility. 

The move to establish an external, state-backed agency mirrors the trajectory of the UK’s Independent Football Regulator, suggesting a European convergence toward regulatory control anchored in state statute rather than federation rulebooks.

 Financial Intervention in the Sports Decree

The draft Sports Decree also addresses the overall financial health of Italian sport with an explicit “economic imperative”. One controversial measure included is the possible partial reversal of the 2018 Dignity Decree’s ban on gambling sponsorship, which is estimated to have cost top-flight Italian football up to €150 million annually.

This policy presents a strategic dilemma: the government is simultaneously tightening regulatory control via a new supervisory agency  while seeking to artificially inflate commercial revenue streams through the re-introduction of gambling sponsorship.

 This suggests that policymakers believe Italian football’s structural problems require both enhanced regulatory discipline and immediate revenue restoration to achieve genuine sustainability.

Netherlands (Eredivisie): KNVB Licensing for Integrity and Continuity

KNVB Licensing Committee Structure and Scope

Regulation of the Dutch Eredivisie (top division) and Eerste Divisie is managed by the KNVB Licensing Committee, operating a comprehensive professional licensing system.

This system is explicitly designed to guarantee the integrity, continuity, and quality of football competitions. The KNVB Licensing Committee is advised by a specialised committee comprising representatives from both the league and the clubs, fostering a collaborative approach to setting standards. Oversight figures include Paul van Wageningen, Head of Club Licensing at the KNVB.

The licensing system mandates compliance across several quality-determining factors:

• Financial Integrity: Clubs must submit periodic financial reports.
• Infrastructure and Safety: Compliance is enforced through annual safety audits.
• Organizational Requirements: Clubs must adhere to standards for their legal structure, administrative organization, and the structure of their youth training systems.
• Third-Party Ownership (TPO): The KNVB enforces a strict prohibition on the practice of involving a third party in the transfer of a player, ensuring clubs retain full control over their playing assets.

Enforcement Case Study: Vitesse and License Revocation

The case of Vitesse demonstrates the KNVB’s commitment to enforcement, particularly regarding integrity and continuity. The club faced disciplinary action, including an 18-point deduction leading to relegation in 2024, for repeatedly failing to meet the requirements of the licensing regulations over a prolonged period.

The violations were deemed exceptionally serious and broad in extent. They included failing to meet standard financial and accountancy rules and, critically, breaches of corporate integrity. Vitesse was penalised for providing incorrect information relevant to a forensic investigation into possible violations of European sanctions legislation (specifically referencing links to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich) and for withholding information crucial to assessing the club’s continuity. This demonstrates the KNVB views adherence to geopolitical compliance and transparency as core components of its licensing mandate.

The KNVB Licensing Committee eventually determined the highest available sanction: the withdrawal of the club’s professional license. This decision was upheld by the KNVB Appeal Committee and subsequently found to be legally sound by a preliminary relief judge at the Midden-Nederland District Court. The use of license revocation as the ultimate sanction demonstrates that the KNVB system, much like the DFL and DNCG, prioritises the integrity and continuity of the professional structure over the competitive status of the individual club.

Comparative Analysis of Regulatory Effectiveness and Sanctions

The analysis of these major European leagues reveals fundamental differences in regulatory philosophy, statutory foundation, and the consequent effectiveness of enforcement mechanisms.

Comparison of Regulatory Models: Proactive vs. Reactive Control

Financial governance models generally fall into three categories:

1. Proactive Hard Control (Spain, France): This model dictates budgetary compliance before the season starts. The LALIGA Validation Body and the DNCG mandate budget corrections, impose salary caps, and adjust spending limits (LCP) to prevent future insolvency. While highly intrusive, this mechanism provides superior financial discipline and stability, largely avoiding the catastrophic retrospective sanctions seen elsewhere.
2. Reactive Audit Control (England, UEFA): This model allows greater operational flexibility but operates through a multi-year, retrospective audit (PSR, FSR). Sanctions only materialise years after the financial transgression has occurred, resulting in delayed, competitive damage (points deductions) that undermines short-term league integrity.
3. Governance-Structural Control (Germany): The DFL leverages the 50+1 rule as a preventative structural safeguard. By inherently linking financial stability to long-term member control, the system minimises the need for aggressive day-to-day intervention, making stability a natural outcome of governance.

Comparison of Domestic Financial Control Mechanisms and Regulatory Structure

The regulatory models fall on a clear spectrum regarding their statutory integration. 

In Spain and Germany, national sports legislation grants the leagues high-level oversight and enforcement power. France’s DNCG leverages explicit state law (Code du Sport) for its authority.

 Conversely, the UK and Italy have actively engaged in legislative processes to transition away from insufficient internal oversight (Premier League and FIGC self-regulation) by enacting new, direct state legislation (IFR and Sports Decree). This collective movement confirms the international acceptance that effective financial governance in football now requires legal, state-backed authority to ensure enforcement impartiality and rigor.

Furthermore, the KNVB’s enforcement in the Vitesse case demonstrates a significant expansion of the regulatory scope. The focus moved beyond simple debt management to include violations of geopolitical compliance (European sanctions against Russia) and intentional corporate opacity. This demonstrates that modern regulatory frameworks treat corporate integrity and international political compliance as prerequisites for professional licensing.

 Inevitability of Legal Challenge?

The imposition of severe sporting sanctions, such as points deductions or license revocation, inevitably elevates regulatory disputes from internal federation hearings to external judicial review. When a club’s very existence or competitive standing is jeopardised (as seen in the KNVB’s decision against Vitesse, which was appealed up to the District Court), the regulator’s decision faces intense judicial scrutiny.

Moreover, regulatory systems relying on subjective financial metrics, such as the LALIGA Validation Body’s assessment of financial stability  or the Premier League’s determination of Fair Market Value for APTs, create inherent vulnerabilities. 

These complex valuations require subjective judgment from experts, which serves as fertile ground for lengthy legal disputes and challenges, increasing the cost and complexity of enforcement for regulators.

Conclusions and Strategic Recommendations

The comparative analysis provides evidence that the efficacy of financial governance in European football is directly proportional to the regulator’s statutory backing and its ability to intervene proactively. 

Systems relying on internal, reactive audit models (like the Premier League’s current PSR) are prone to structural failure, leading to crisis-driven intervention. Conversely, models embedded in strong national legislation and utilizing proactive tools (like the LCP or DNCG’s pre-approval and conditioning powers) exhibit higher intrinsic financial stability.

Strategic Conclusions

1. Statutory authority is the precondition for rigor: The regulatory crises in England and Italy confirm that federation self-regulation lacks the necessary impartiality and statutory mandate to enforce long-term stability and protect non-commercial assets. The establishment of politically independent, state-backed regulators (IFR, proposed Italian agency) is a necessary evolution to safeguard public interest and club heritage.
2. Proactive control mitigates competitive chaos: The proactive validation models employed by La Liga and the DNCG prevent the accumulation of catastrophic deficits by forcing corrections before the season starts. This mechanism prevents the need for large, retrospective sporting sanctions (like points deductions) that severely compromise the competitive integrity of the league standings years later.
3. Regulation must address revenue quality: The increasing focus on Associated Party Transactions and Fair Market Value checks (Premier League) signifies that regulating revenue quality is now as critical as controlling expenditure. The FSR, by transitioning to the Squad Cost Ratio, similarly attempts to link cost structure directly to verified revenue streams.

Recommendations for enhanced regulatory standards?

Based on this comparative study, the following strategic recommendations are suggested for jurisdictions seeking to enhance financial and governance rigor:

1. Mandatory proactive budgetary vetting: Leagues currently relying on reactive audit models should adopt a component of the Spanish or French systems, requiring independent validation and potential rectification of future-year budgets before professional licensing is granted. This shift from penalising failure to mandating success is crucial for continuity.
2. Centralized fair market value tribunals: To handle the growing complexity of APTs and related-party financial engineering, a centralised, specialised tribunal system should be established, potentially administered regionally or by UEFA. This system must standardise valuation methodologies, relying on independent data and expertise, to ensure consistent and legally defensible rulings on revenue authenticity across the continent.
3. Universal integrity licensing for expulsion: All major league licensing frameworks should adopt the KNVB’s stringent focus on corporate integrity. License revocation should be established as the mandatory ultimate sanction for intentional breaches of corporate transparency, intentional withholding of information crucial to continuity assessment, or violations of international compliance laws (such as sanctions legislation), independent of simple financial debt levels.