In late May, UEFA's exec committee passed a few new rules. You've probably heard about them:

Uefa has approved plans to force clubs in European competition to spend only what they earn. The financial fair play rules will require clubs to break even over a rolling three-year period if they want to play in the Champions League or Europa League.

This will take effect in 2012, though clubs will be given leeway over a six-year grace period. UEFA boss Michael Platini justifies the new rules thusly:

"This approval is the start of an important journey for European football's club finances as we begin to put stability and economic common sense back into football. I thank all the stakeholders who have supported this along the way."

I'm all for fair play, and everyone reading this blog would probably like to see more of it in European football. The 'haves' at the top of the EPL and La Liga, along with giants like Juventus and Bayern Munich, have a stranglehold on the vast majority of the cash in the game. A look at the revenue numbers tracked by Deloitte reveals 10 teams pulling in at least 196m euros per season, with Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Manchester United dwarfing everyone else by pulling in over 300m each. Teams raking in that kind of dough should have to work hard to wind up in the red... which is apparently just what they're doing. There's the insane debt at Man U from the Glazers' leveraged buyout, the monster loan taken out by Real to go on their Galacticos spending spree last year, and Barca's recent loan taken out to pay staff and players -- and that's just off the top of my head. With teams like these unable to spend within their earnings, it's easy to see why Platini's new rules would appear helpful. But spending within your means is only half of an equation, and on its own can make matters of fairness worse. Teams also need to share revenue to avoid entrenching the elite clubs and blocking anyone else from joining their ranks. Let's take a look at why UEFA's financial fair play rules, as they stand, have a chance of making the problems in the game worse, not better (unless you're running one of the top 10 clubs, of course).

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