Now a new problem has emerged in the obscure though highly significant small print of the new FFP rulebook. If City fail to meet FFP, a "directly affected party" has 10 days to appeal against any attempt by the club to then cut a deal with Uefa to reduce their sanction of a likely Champions League ban. City would then be exposed to a Uefa tribunal.
The governing body may deliver their verdict on clubs' finances as early as May. Arsenal and Liverpool have made it clear they expect strong enforcement of FFP by Uefa and both clubs could make the challenge – putting them in a state of open conflict with City – if either miss out on a Champions' League place.
Liverpool's principal owner, John W Henry, said in his first meeting with British newspaper journalists in 2010, that it did not matter he lacked a "'Sheikh' in front of my name" because FFP would deliver a level playing field and he had that in mind when buying Liverpool. Henry's managing director at Anfield, Ian Ayre, said in 2012 that "the rules are rules and should be hard and fast. What will kill the initiative, or certainly stifle it, is people easing themselves into it rather than the rules applying and everyone operating within them," he said.
