Malaga face further UEFA action over bills
Reuters - Friday 30 November 2012, 11:34
Spain's Malaga are one of nine clubs facing further punishment from
UEFA over unpaid bills as European football's governing body tightens its
financial controls.
UEFA
said in a statement on Friday it had lifted the suspension of prize
money for 16 of 23 clubs originally targeted in September after they
wiped out arrears owed to other teams, their staff or tax authorities.
However,
Qatari-owned Malaga, who have qualified for the last 16 of the
Champions League in their debut season, failed to meet a deadline of
end-September to show they had cleared overdue payments.
Their
case has now been referred to UEFA's adjudicatory chamber that has a
range of sanctions available including disqualification from current
competitions.
After heavy
investment to reach the Champions League, Malaga appeared to run into
financial problems at the start of the season, delaying payments to
players and selling others.
A
Malaga spokesman said the club were working to settle debts "as soon as
possible" and hoped to "unblock" the situation with UEFA very soon.
He
also noted that midfielder Duda, one of the club captains, had said on
Thursday that he and the players were satisfied with the guarantees
they had received.
UEFA is
introducing Financial Fair Play measures designed to force European
clubs to balance their books. Clubs could face exclusion from European
competition from 2014/15 onwards if they do not curb their losses.
Other
clubs facing further action are Croatia's Hajduk Split and Osijek,
Romania's Rapid and Dinamo Bucharest and Partizan Belgrade and
Vojvodina of Serbia.
Poland's
Lech Poznan and Arsenal Kiev of Ukraine also face action. They were not
among the clubs originally targeted but their overdue payments
situation deteriorated between June and September 2012.