UEFA punishes Juventus and Newcastle with multi-million fines for financial irregularities

UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) First Chamber concluded this Tuesday the assessment of clubs participating in the 2025/26 European competitions and released a package of sanctions against clubs that breached the financial sustainability rules. In total, sixteen clubs were punished on three distinct fronts: the football earnings rule, the squad cost ceiling and the accounting transparency obligation.

Juventus and Newcastle under a three-year agreement

The most serious cases involve Juventus FC and Newcastle United FC, both falling under the football earnings rule – a norm assessed for the first time on an aggregate basis, considering the 2023, 2024 and 2025 fiscal years. The two clubs signed settlement agreements with UEFA for a three-year period, with a final deadline for compliance by the 2028/29 season.

Juventus took the heaviest fine: 20 million euros, of which 14 million is unconditional. Newcastle will pay 10 million euros, of which 7 million is already guaranteed. In addition to the fines, both are subject to restrictions on registering new players on List A of UEFA competitions. If they fail to meet the annual intermediate targets, the penalties can escalate up to exclusion from European competitions.

OGC Nice and Santa Clara also breached the same norm, but convinced the CFCB that the infraction was temporary. The French club was fined 2 million euros and the Portuguese one 1 million, with most of the amounts conditioned on compliance with the rules the following season. FC Astana and FK Partizan, with smaller deviations, came away with symbolic fines of 100,000 and 200,000 euros, respectively.

The English dominate the squad cost infringement list

The second front of punishments concerns the squad cost ratio, which cannot exceed 70% of the club’s revenue in the 2025 calendar year. Nine clubs exceeded this limit – and four of them are from the Premier League.

The most severe case outside England is that of RC Strasbourg: the French team received the largest fine on the list, 25 million euros, in addition to transfer market restrictions for 2026/27. Aston Villa FC appears just behind, with 22.5 million euros – also subject to a player registration veto. It is worth remembering that Villa and Chelsea had already been punished the previous season; this time, the chamber took into account the improvement in the indicators, conditioning part of the fines on the continued reduction of spending.

Bologna FC and SSC Napoli also recorded a ratio above 70%, but escaped punishment: the football revenue surplus calculated in 2025 and 2026 offset the excess, as provided for in UEFA’s own regulations.

FK Vardar Skopje fined for an incomplete report

The third punishment in this round of decisions was more discreet, but relevant from an institutional standpoint. FK Vardar Skopje, of North Macedonia, presented incomplete accounting information – a flaw corrected in the 2025 financial year, but which resulted in a fine of 250,000 euros. There is also a clear warning: if the irregularity is repeated in the next three seasons, the club will be excluded from the next European competition for which it qualifies.

The set of decisions this Tuesday reinforces the firmer stance UEFA has been adopting since the overhaul of the financial fair play rules. The body not only punishes, but monitors the clubs’ trajectory over three-year cycles – which turns the sanctions into tools of continuous control, not just one-off punishment.