NYON: Liverpool and Sparta Prague have been cleared by UEFA over concerns about whether they had met the financial fair play regulations. However four clubs have accepted a breach and signed ‘settlement agreements’.

According to the European federation’s club financial control body (CFCB) investigatory chamber the four clubs  are Hapoel Tel-Aviv (Israel), Hull City (England), Panathinaikos (Greece) and Ruch Chorzów (Poland).

A statement from UEFA described the agreements as being “aimed at ensuring each club achieves break-even compliance with minimal delay, and are defined by Articles 14 (1) (b) and 15 of the Procedural Rules governing the CFCB.”

The statement continued:

Each of the settlement agreements includes break-even targets, whereby each club will need to prove by no later than 31 December 2015 to have reached full compliance with the UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations, and financial contributions, whereby each of the clubs agrees to pay an unconditional amount of €200,000.

The individual summary settlements (in English only) are available on UEFA.org.

Each club will be subject to ongoing monitoring, and any case of non-compliance with the terms of their agreement will be automatically referred to the CFCB Adjudicatory Chamber as per Article 15 (4) of the Procedural Rules governing the CFCB.

Agreements may be reviewed by the CFCB Adjudicatory Chamber upon the request of the Chairman of the CFCB and/or upon the request of a directly affected party within ten days.

The CFCB Investigatory Chamber also announced that AC Sparta Praha (CZE) and Liverpool FC (ENG) have been found (following the submission of additional financial information) to have satisfied the break-even requirement and are no longer under investigation.

The CFCB is continuing its monitoring of those clubs who had disclosed a break-even deficit on the basis of their financial reporting periods ending in 2012 and 2013 and the clubs who had been previously requested to provide additional monitoring information (as reported in media release number 56 on 11 December 2014).

Furthermore, the CFCB Investigatory Chamber also provided updates on two clubs whose settlement agreements terms recently ended: PFC Levski Sofia (BUL) and Trabzonspor AŞ (TUR) were found to have fully complied with the terms of their agreement. As a consequence they have exited the settlement regime.

Finally, the CFCB Investigatory Chamber also announced that it has decided to open investigations into FC Dinamo Moskva (RUS) and FC Lokomotiv Moskva (RUS) after these clubs disclosed break-even deficit in respect of their financial reporting periods ending in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

The next step in this season’s Financial Fair play timetable will see the final submission of break-even information in mid-March. Monitoring work is ongoing, including requests for additional information and audits, on all other previously opened investigations and settlement agreements which are still ongoing.

The CFCB Investigatory Chamber is set to reach its decisions in late May; any cases referred to the adjudicatory chamber will have their final decisions in June; and decisions by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on any appeal cases are expected between the end of July and mid-August.

The introduction of the UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations has already had a very positive impact on the scale of overdue payables, as they have decreased from €57m in June 2011 to €8m in June 2014. In addition, the aggregate losses reported by Europe’s first-division clubs in the 2013 financial year have gone down to €800m from a record-reported deficit of €1.7bn in 2011.

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