Talking to ESPN in the context of his Brazilian club, Botafogo, John Textor has hit out strongly at the fundamental unfairness of so-called Financial Fair Play rules in football.
The Crystal Palace shareholder, who is currently trying to sell his shares at Selhurst Park to try and buy Farhad Moshiri’s majority stake in Everton, made no bones about his opposition to Financial Fair Play.
“The term financial fair play is a fraud because it is not fair enough. Who says that teams can only spend 75% of their revenue on player salaries,” he said.
“It’s a rule in Europe that was made to allow the big teams, with their big brands, like Liverpool, Manchester United, to spend more money. That’s not fair!
“Crystal Palace has to play against Manchester United, which is allowed to spend more on players, there is no financial parity,” he continued.
“They use other words, like sustainability, that there is financial fair play because they care about their club. In the Premier League, you have small clubs bought by mega-billionaires, with a lot of money, but they can’t spend it.
“Only the big clubs, with the biggest global budgets, can spend. It’s not about financial sustainability for the health of the club, but rather an unfair practice, a rule made to allow hegemony, for big clubs to always be dominant.”