Fourteen clubs have been hit with UEFA sanctions for breaching financial sustainability rules ahead of the 2025-26 season — and the fines are significant enough to sting, but probably not significant enough to change behavior at the top end.
Juventus and Newcastle United both fell foul of UEFA's football earnings rule, which tracks aggregate football-related losses across a three-year window covering financial years ending in 2023, 2024, and 2025. It's the first time the rule has been assessed on that three-year basis, and both clubs immediately felt its teeth.
Juventus were fined €20 million (€14m conditional), Newcastle €10 million (€7m suspended). Both have agreed to three-year settlement plans requiring them to hit annual financial targets and reach full compliance by the end of the 2028-29 season. Fall short, and the consequences escalate — stricter player registration limits, or outright exclusion from UEFA competition.
Registration restrictions add real sporting bite
The fines alone wouldn't scare clubs spending at this level. What actually hurts is the List A restriction. Both Juventus and Newcastle will face limits on how many players they can register for UEFA competitions — a 25-player squad with eight homegrown spots suddenly becomes even tighter when UEFA starts trimming your available slots. For Newcastle, who are still building their European identity under Dan Ashworth's structural project, that constraint could directly shape their summer transfer strategy. Any potential signings will need to be weighed against registration math, not just quality.
OGC Nice, Santa Clara, FK Astana and FK Partizan also breached the earnings rule. Nice (€2m fine) and Santa Clara (€1m) were treated more leniently after showing their violations were temporary. Astana and Partizan got off with €100,000 and €200,000 respectively for minor infractions.
The squad cost rule caught a wider net
UEFA's squad cost rule — which caps spending on wages, transfers and agent fees at 70% of club revenue and player sale profits — caught nine clubs in violation for the 2025 calendar year. The list reads like a who's who of overspending:
- RC Strasbourg — €25 million fine (€12m conditional), player registration restrictions in 2026-27
- Aston Villa — €22.5 million fine (€15m suspended), registration restrictions in 2026-27
- Fenerbahce — €7 million
- Fiorentina — €6 million
- Chelsea — €3 million (€2m suspended)
- Newcastle United — €3 million
- Nottingham Forest — €2.5 million
- AEK Athens — €500,000
- OGC Nice — €450,000
Strasbourg's position at the top of that list is striking — a club of their size and European profile carrying a larger squad cost fine than Chelsea or Villa points to some genuinely alarming financial management. For Villa, this is the second consecutive season they've been sanctioned under the squad cost rule, though UEFA acknowledged an improving trend in their ratios. The registration restrictions heading into 2026-27 are the real concern — Unai Emery's squad-building will operate under a cloud of compliance pressure exactly when the club might want to push deeper into Europe.
Chelsea, also a repeat offender, dodged the registration restrictions this time around. The €2m suspended fine suggests UEFA accepted the club is trending in the right direction. Whether that trajectory holds under a squad that keeps expanding is another question entirely.
Bologna and Napoli both reported squad cost ratios above the 70% threshold but avoided fines entirely — their football earnings surpluses offset the deviation. A reminder that the rules reward clubs who can generate revenue, not just those who spend less.
UEFA also fined FK Vardar Skopje €250,000 for submitting incomplete financial information, with a warning that a repeat offence within three seasons could trigger exclusion from European competition.
