UEFA must decide whether or not Manchester City's £400 million sponsorship deal breaches new financial fair play laws, according to Liverpool managing director Ian Ayre. UEFA's new financial fair play laws come into effect in 2013. The new criteria will make it illegal for clubs to spend more than the income they receive from the business side of the sport, including income from sponsorship deals.

Any club failing to adhere to these rules would be banned from playing in European competition.
City's deal with Abu Dhabi based airline Etihad - the home of club owner Sheikh Mansour - includes naming rights to the stadium, a new training facility and new money being pumped into shirt sponsorship. The airline is owned by Mansour's family.
But UEFA will be left to decide whether or not the City deal is inflated to flout the new rules, with the value of the naming rights to the ground over a 10-year period also being questioned by Ayre.
Under UEFA regulations, clubs that incur aggregate losses of more than £39.5 million over three years will be banned from European competition. City's annual losses last season were three times that amount.
""Are Etihad, City and Sheikh Mansour related parties? If they are, it's up to Uefa to rule on them,"" commented Ayre.
""The guys from Uefa who are managing it said there would be a robust and proper process about related-party transactions.""
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has already aired his concerns over the situation.
""They give us the message that they can get around it by doing what they want,"" said Wenger. ""The difficulty and the credibility of the financial fair play is at stake.
""If financial fair play is to have a chance, the sponsorship has to be at the market price. It cannot be doubled, tripled or quadrupled. If they bring the rules in they have to be respected.
""He
[the UEFA president Michel Platini] is very strongly determined on that. He is not stupid, he knows that some clubs will try to get around that.
""At the moment I believe they are studying, behind closed doors, how they can really strongly check it. That is his big test.""
(Source: Eurosport)