Be prepared for a showdown. Michel Platini went out of his way in London yesterday to reassure journalists that he had no bone to pick with the Premier League, but the Uefa president left little doubt that a radical revamping of the rules — one that would exclude clubs that failed to meet certain financial requirements from participating in European competition — is on the cards. “We need to reintroduce the concept of morality in football,” Platini said. “We have to permit everybody to have a chance to win.”

Uefa’s strategy council will discuss the issue when it meets next month and further progress should be made later in the year at the next meeting of the executive committee. But one radical proposal on the table, championed by the European Club Association (ECA), the body that represents some 150 clubs drawn from each of Uefa’s 53 member nations, would greatly alter the way clubs operate.

Under the ECA plan, clubs could spend no more than a certain percentage — yet to be determined, but thought to be between 50 and 70 per cent — of turnover on wages and transfers. For example, if the limit were set at 60 per cent, a club with a turnover of £50 million and a wage bill of £25 million could then spend only a further £5 million net on transfers.

Given that many, if not most, Barclays Premier League clubs have wage bills well in excess of two thirds of turnover, it is bound to affect them profoundly.

Platini, however, was quick to dismiss the notion that he was targeting English clubs. For a start, he said, many clubs across the Continent were in the same boat in terms of their finances. And, unlike a proposal floated by David Taylor, the Uefa general secretary, which included a provision about clubs carrying excessive debt, long-term capital borrowing would not figure in the calculation.

Furthermore, Platini said, this would only affect clubs wishing to play in Uefa competitions such as the Champions League and, from next season, the Europa League (at present the Uefa Cup). Uefa would not and could not extend any kind of regulation over Premier League clubs because it does not have any jurisdiction over domestic football.

Platini was also at pains to point out that nothing has been decided, that this is only one of several options on the table and that any proposal would be phased in gradually, so as to give clubs time to adjust. However, he added: “This proposal has the support of the ECA. It’s backed by the ECA’s president, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, of Bayern Munich, and vice-president, Joan Laporta, of Barcelona. It therefore has the support of the clubs and it is the clubs who asked me to act upon this proposal.”

To what degree the Premier League’s top clubs agree with the plan remains unclear — Platini admits he has not spoken to any English sides — but perhaps it is not surprising that Europe’s top clubs favour the idea.

By linking expenditure on wages and transfers to turnover — “operating within a club’s income” is how Platini describes it — bigger clubs would effectively be able perpetually to outspend the opposition, without the risk of a Sheikh Mansour or a Roman Abramovich coming in and bankrolling an upstart.

In other words, Manchester City would never have been able to table a £100 million-plus bid for Kaká, the AC Milan forward, an offer that Platini described as ridiculous. When asked how a smaller club could ever hope to compete in those circumstances, Platini replied: “By investing in their academy and growing their own players, not by waiting for an Arab sheikh to bring €150 million.”

The Uefa president also said that he believed England had “everything necessary” to stage the 2018 World Cup finals, but that he would not back them specifically in their bid, preferring instead to support all European bidders, with Spain/Portugal, Russia and the Netherlands/Belgium the other contenders.

Platini was critical of the decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, at the urging of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), to ban two Brescia players for 12 months after they turned up 25 minutes late for a drugs test. “This decision was simply scandalous,” he said. “Football has to find a way to fight back against Wada, who do as they please, when they please.

“It’s the same with the ‘whereabouts’ rule. I totally support the recommendation not to follow Wada’s code. Wada can find footballers for 330 days out of the year. I think they have a right to be left alone for one month each summer.”