Marseille (AFP)

Olympique de Marseille has been fined 3 million euros for violating the rules of financial fair play, UEFA announced on Friday, a decision that preserves the essentials for the Marseille club, which is allowed to compete the Champions League next season.

The OM "takes note" of his conviction but "will decide in the next few hours" if he appeals to the Arbitration Tribunal for Sport (CAS). The judgment chamber of the UEFA Club Financial Control Commission (ICFC) "understood the health situation and its impact on the financial balance of all football players", reacts the Marseille club on Friday evening, in a communicated.

"She especially recognized the obvious impossibility of many clubs to make medium-term forecasts and underlined the total lack of visibility on the current economic prospects", continues OM. "However, the Chamber's decision includes significant financial sanctions in an economic context made extremely difficult by the Covid-19 crisis," he deplores.

In addition to the fine, the Judgment Chamber of the Club Financial Control Commission (ICFC) of the body decided to withdraw 15% of the sums that the club will collect for its participation in European competitions for 2020-2021 and possibly 2021-2022 if he is qualified, and to impose a limit of 23 players on the number of players who can compete in the continental cups until 2022-2023.

This judgment definitively dismisses the scenario feared by the supporters: a ban on playing the Champions League, while OM won on the field the right to dispute it, finishing second in the last Ligue 1 exercise interrupted by the coronavirus.

The club is paying the financial imbalance in its 2018-2019 accounts, which has attracted the attention of the European body.

- Deficit exceeded -

On March 5, UEFA announced that the file had moved from the investigative to the trial chamber, as OM exceeded its negotiated deficit: the losses were not to exceed EUR 50 million in June 2019, they were EUR 91 million.

Marseille had yet signed an agreement covering four seasons, until 2023, where it pledged to cut spending to achieve balance.

Already the previous season, OM was in deficit of 78.5 M EUR, and had been sanctioned: 6 M EUR withdrawn from its future gains in European cups, including 4 M EUR conditional on the respect by the club of its commitments with the authority.

According to this first sanction, the Marseillais also had to limit to 23 (against 25 usually) the number of players registered in European cups for the 2020/2021 season. This will therefore be the case for the next three years, following the latest announcement from UEFA.

President Jacques-Henri Eyraud and his teams negotiated at length over the FPF, the leader making several trips back and forth to UEFA headquarters in Nyon, then discussions continued from a distance during the health crisis.

"JHE" defended his vision, and that of the club's owner, Frank McCourt: the first years were devoted to heavy investments to launch their project. The American businessman has already injected some 250 M EUR into the club, bought in October 2016.

As a reminder, financial fair play (FPF) prohibits a club engaged in European competition from spending more than it earns and closely supervises capital injections from owners.

© 2020 AFP