Join The Club
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
Five times a week
FourFourTwo Daily
Fantastic football content straight to your inbox! From the latest transfer news, quizzes, videos, features and interviews with the biggest names in the game, plus lots more.
Once a week
...And it’s LIVE!
Sign up to our FREE live football newsletter, tracking all of the biggest games available to watch on the device of your choice. Never miss a kick-off!
Join the club
Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.
It’s been three years since the Premier League first announced that they were referring Manchester City to a commission for alleged breaches of the division’s financial rules over a nine-season period, which was later extended through to the end of the 2022/23 season.
And it is now 14 months since the commission led a hearing into the charges in London, with legal representatives for both the Premier League and Manchester City gathering to make their case in front of a three-person panel.
Manchester City's 115 charges sanction remains up in the air
It is thought there may be as many as 134 separate charges leveled against City, with the Premier League attempting to leave as little space as possible for the club to wriggle out through gaps in the league rules.
The accusations include inflating the value of sponsorship deals with the owners’ other companies and secret payments to players and managers that, had they been ‘properly’ accounted for, would have left the club in contravention of those rules. The Premier League also allege that City have obstructed their investigation into the claims. City have consistently denied the allegations in their entirety.
As the Guardian’s Paul MacInnes reports, the longer it drags on, the more apathetic City’s rivals have become about the potential outcome.
A lot of that is to do with a simple loss of interest in an investigation that began seven years ago. The rival chairmen who were most upset by City’s alleged infractions, Tottenham’s Deniel Levy and Arsenal’s Tim Lewis, have both departed their clubs and no longer have a say in Premier League meetings.
More pertinently, two entire reforms to the Premier League’s financial regulations have been passed since the period of the initial allegations against City. That has lessened the knock-on effects of the City case whatever the decision.
If the same rules were still in place, a decision overwhelmingly against City would raise questions about who might be next in the Premier League’s sights and whether everything is quite as in-order at other clubs as it should be.
If instead the decision were to come out broadly in City’s favour, it would prompt concerns from clubs outside the Premier League’s very elite about whether it was simply too easy for the wealthiest clubs to bend the rules without consequence.
But in light of the changes to the rules, rival clubs increasingly regard the City case with a shrug: ‘Those rules don’t apply anymore, doesn’t really affect us one way or another.’
Nonetheless, the Premier League have spared no expense in attempting to send a message that they are not willing to give up an inch on enforcing their financial rules. Everton and Nottingham Forest found that out for themselves in 2023/24. The Premier League’s legal costs have duly soared.
That is only likely to have strengthened the Premier League’s resolve to hit City hard if the panel eventually delivers a set of verdicts that give the league permission to wield the punishment hammer – a feeling that was reinforced by their involvement in the EFL’s case against Leicester City this week.
Unsurprisingly after the way Leicester’s lawyer left the Premier League rulemakers with significant amounts of egg on their faces in 2024, the top flight authorities – who were last season told they did not have the jurisdiction to apply the punishment themselves – are reported to have pushed for an even more significant punishment than the six-point deduction Leicester have received.
The Telegraph’s esteemed John Percy reports that the Premier League had wanted Leicester to be docked 20 points, which would have put them firmly into the Championship relegation zone with dim hopes of survival. As it is, they remain out of the bottom three on goal difference. For now, anyway.
There has been some suggestion that the Premier League may yet appeal the decision on the grounds of undue leniency. (Leicester, for their part, are appealing that their deduction is disproportionately harsh.)
The Premier League’s brutal approach to the Leicester case may well have caused a few backs at Manchester City to straighten just a little bit more. After all, if they are willing to go after Leicester with such a heavy hand for a handful of charges, what punishment might they be willing to mete out for the dozens of charges against Manchester City’s name if the commission’s decisions go against them?
If the Premier League’s case succeeds, the potential consequences for City range from fines, points deductions, suspension, expulsion from the division, or any combination of the above. City could even be retrospectively stripped of the titles they won in the period in question.
As it stands, though, we still have no idea whether the Premier League’s allegations or City’s denials will win out on a single one of the charges, let alone the full complement of over one hundred.
Even when the verdict is eventually delivered, that is unlikely to be the end of it. There remains the possibility – even the likelihood – of one or both parties referring the verdict to an appeals panel, then to arbitration, and then potentially through the English legal system. If it went all the way, that would mean going first to the High Court, then potentially Court of Appeal, and possibly even, finally, the Supreme Court.
No doubt there is good reason for the delay. The most compelling of those reasons is that with such a potentially lengthy appeals process, the commission wants to make sure their verdict is as watertight as possible; there would be little point in publishing findings that were too open to being exhaustively picked over, re-litigated and overturned down the line.
But for those interested in the swift administration of justice, the wait grows increasingly interminable.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
