Manchester City has been found guilty of a host of breaches of financial fair play regulations after a four-year investigation by the Premier League.
The charges against the reigning champions relate to financial information regarding revenue, details of manager and player remuneration, UEFA regulations, profitability and sustainability with Premier League investigations.
A statement from the Premier League said alleged breaches were committed across nine different seasons beginning in 2009/10 to the 2017/18 season and will now be referred to an independent commission. Between the dates mentioned, Man City won three Premier League titles, an FA Cup and three Carabao Cups.
If the commission find City guilty of the breaches they could face a potential range of sanctions including a points deduction.
‘In accordance with Premier League Rule W.82.1, the Premier League confirms that it has today referred a number of alleged breaches of the Premier League Rules by Manchester City Football Club to a Commission,’ the Premier League said in a statement.
The investigation started in December 2018 after the German investigative website Der Spiegel published documents from the Football Leaks cache which originated from the Portuguese computer hacker Rui Pinto.
It alleged that City had breached rules regarding approaches to young players, overstated sponsorship income by paying the club’s Abu Dhabi owners rather than sponsors with ties to the Gulf state, and effectively doubled the pay of former manager Roberto Mancini through a secret agreement with an Abu Dhabi club.
Back in February 2020, the club was found to have seriously misled the European Football Association (UEFA) and infringed financial fair play rules, resulting to a Champions League ban and a £25 million fine.
This was then lifted by the court of arbitration for sport which also reduced the club’s fine to £9m.
The panel at the time said City had shown a ‘disregard’ for the principle that clubs must cooperate with a governing body’s investigations, and conducted an ‘obstruction of the investigations’.
However, on the central finding by the CFCB’s adjudicatory chamber that City’s Abu Dhabi ownership had disguised its own funding as independent sponsorship by the state’s commercial companies, the CAS found: ‘Most of the alleged breaches were either not established or time-barred.’
According to the Court of Appeal, an arbitration tribunal ordered City to turn over “certain documents and information to the Premier League and to make enquiries of third parties” two years after the Premier League’s investigation got underway.
In July 2021 a Court of Appeal decision revealed that City had challenged the jurisdiction of an arbitration panel set up by the Premier League and had, unsuccessfully, legally challenged demands to hand over documents and information.
Lord Justice Males, one of the justices, stated in the ruling: “This is an investigation that started in December 2018.” After two and a half years, when the team, it should be emphasized, has won the Premier League twice, it is surprising and a matter for legitimate public concern that so little progress has been made.
More to follow…..
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