Adapting UEFA’s Financial Fair Play Framework to the Moroccan Context: A theoretical Approach to Sustainable Football Club Governance

Abstract

This paper investigates the extent to which UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations can be adapted to the Moroccan football context to address systemic deficits in financial governance and transparency. While Moroccan football is undergoing rapid institutional development, domestic clubs continue to face structural vulnerabilities, most notably an absence of public financial disclosure and an unsustainable reliance on state subsidies, necessitating tailored regulatory intervention.

To do so, our study employs a qualitative research design, anchoring its approach in a critical and conceptual literature review. It synthesizes UEFA’s FFP regulatory frameworks, academic discourse on sports governance, and government institutional reports to conduct a rigorous case analysis of the financial environment of Moroccan football clubs.

Findings demonstrate that a direct replication of UEFA’s FFP framework is unfeasible for Morocco due to institutional and economic disparities. Consequently, this study proposes a tailored, phased contextual model for the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (RMFF). This proposed framework comprises four foundational pillars: (1) enforcing mandatory, publicly accessible financial transparency; (2) implementing soft, revenue-based spending restrictions; (3) establishing a scaled club licensing system; and (4) deploying a balanced mechanism of sanctions and incentives to ensure sustained compliance.

JEL Classification: Z20

Paper type: Theoretical Research