UEFA’s financial Fair Play regulations, set to begin in 2012, are intended to be the fiscal salvation of European football.

In principle, clubs won’t be able to spend more than they make. The intention is to discourage overspending that leads to bankruptcies such as Portsmouth’s.

Sounds good, right? But maybe it’s not.

Some of the consequences can be foreseen.

Clubs with a big stadium and a large revenue stream will dominate. Both domestic leagues and the Champions League risk becoming even more predictable than they are now. They could all end up like La Liga, where revenue distribution guarantees that Barca and Madrid are always on top.

But that only affects top clubs with billionaire owners, I hear you saying.

Think again.

There’s an unintended consequence to Fair Play. We’re seeing it already. And its victims are Europe’s smaller clubs.

Historically, a significant amount of young talent is discovered and nurtured at small clubs. As part of the process, the club’s fans get the pleasure of watching the player turn into something special. With luck and achievement, the club’s gate revenues increase. And when the player’s ready for the big time, the club makes a tidy profit selling him.

Win-win.

But not anymore. Listen to Feyenoord sporting director Leo Beenhakker:

“What can you do? English clubs are the great white sharks of football. Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea are all in the game. It’s obviously bad news for Feyenoord… We can’t do anything about it if a foreign club comes up to sign one of our youngsters. The Premier League clubs spoil the market with their behaviour. Other clubs in Europe aren’t doing this kind of thing, but the English sides just don’t care.”

Beenhakker’s complaining about Chelsea poaching 15-year-old defender Nathan Ake. He’s angry because Chelsea are snatching Ake away before Feyenoord have ever realized the benefit of having a young talent. No fan excitement. No handsome transfer fee after a few years of developing him. Just 300 grand and a thank you m’am. The same thing happened to French club Lens when Chelsea took a shine to Gael Kakuta. And Anderlecht can hear a Roman toe tapping as he waits for Romelu Lukaku.

I’ve got bad news for Beenhakker. It’s going to get worse. Because other ambitious European clubs will almost certainly follow in England’s footsteps as Fair Play begins to bite.

If the clubs with limited revenue streams but great aspirations can no longer spend madly in the transfer market, their only survival strategy is to buy cheap young talent by the bucketful and see who develops into a first-team player 5 to 8 years later. It may take more time, but it’s less expensive and it’s sustainable.

Unfortunately, it absolutely cut the legs out from the smaller clubs who in the past benefitted from the occasional cash injection of selling a rising star.

In a Fair Play future top clubs will perpetually trawl the leagues with vast nets, sweeping-up any youngster who shows the least bit of promise. Thus leaving the small clubs perpetually down on talent, down on excitement and never truly rewarded for finding good young players.

It seems entirely plausible that the unintended consequence of financial Fair Play will be to victimize football’s most vulnerable citizens… its small clubs.