That's nonsense. They had to pay what, a €60m fine? That's the sort of money that could buy you one of the best players in the world. On top of that they could only register 21 players in CL which seriously weakens them plus they have to be careful about their money now because future sanctions will be heavier.
Their fine was £16.3m and the rest was suspended.
But City and PSG have already shown that they are careful about FFP limits. That's why PSG could only sign Luiz and had to give up on Di Maria because they'd have to sell their players to fund his signing. City spent little in the Summer and agreed to sell Negredo to be able to sign Bony. It's not like they don't care.
They have shown that they won't obnoxiously flaunt their financial investments in the face of Uefa, but nothing else. Both clubs still spend over £40m on defenders and City have just bought Bony at £30m also. This is whilst both squads are already completely loaded with World Class player's so don't need to spend £150m per window. The real test will be when they go through a bad period and need to spend big money to get back on top (as we have the past 2 seasons), my suspicion is they'll be back to spending £100m a window.
Each to their own but they have already punished City and PSG which sort of makes it pointless for a billionaire to come and risk spending €400m on his team when they can be sure that they will be hit with at least an equal punishment and in all likelihood a heavier one. From what I've witnessed clubs are serious about keeping up with FFP regulations which points to me to the fact that they are really worried about it. You won't see City spending €60m on players anymore which would have definitely happened without FFP.
Future billionaires will just use their other businesses to sponsor the teams immediately as City have now done. They'll create 20-30 different Commercial deals all for £5-10m which will inflate their revenue by around £200m. This will immediately allow them to inflate revenue at the same rate that they purchase player's.
City will definitely be in the market for the likes of Pogba when Toure retires, but they don't need to spend big for the next couple of seasons because of previous spending.
UEFA don't need City or PSG. They need Bayern, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Juventus, Milan etc., clubs that have worldwide following and are in a way legendary. That's why they've brought FFP, to protect these clubs from potential billionaires coming and buying their way into elite. 10-15 years from now and these will be the only competitive clubs in Europe IMO with the odd addition of a well run club like Dortmund and Atletico we have seen in recent years.
They don't need new wealthy clubs, but they aren't going to create unnecessary problems for themselves by implementing their rules stringently. If City and PSG curb their spending slightly and artificially increase their revenues so that it appears that they are breaking even through deals that aren't fair market value; Uefa are happy because their rules have "worked" and the clubs are happy because they can continue to compete at the top level. Instead of expensive legal battles it's a simple negotiation whereby Uefa give a lot and the clubs compromise a little in return.
It basically means only very, very wealthy people who have the resources to create these false revenues can take over clubs. The likes of Randy Lerner for instance wouldn't have the resources to do all this, even if he wanted to spend £300m on Villa and get them into the Champions League. These are the type of clubs Uefa would target, as it would be relatively simple and not very costly to exclude them.
Small chance of that happening now but they should and reevaluate the sponsorship deals to how big a name City actually is in terms of advertising. My guess is the £166m would be halved if not more.
Of course they should if they really want people to take their rules seriously, but they wouldn't have the finances to investigate and fight these definitions through the court system. City would just argue that if United can have a training ground deal worth £20m per year, why can't City? The fact that a none Abu Dhabi company wouldn't sponsor City's training ground for more than £1m would be academic.