Manchester City to appeal financial breach findings

Manchester City are expected to press ahead with an appeal against findings that they breached Premier League financial rules by yesterday’s deadline, opening a fresh chapter in a case that has already become one of the most significant in English soccer.

The club has consistently denied wrongdoing, and indicated they would challenge an independent commission’s findings that they used “sham” commercial contracts as part of schemes to inflate revenue and understate costs by more than ￡900 million (US$1.19 billion) over nearly a decade.

City have said they have a body of “irrefutable evidence” that would clear the club’s name, and are expected to argue that the government of Abu Dhabi — not the club’s owners — partly funded the sponsorship deals.

A satirical billboard aimed at Manchester City is pictured in Manchester, England, on Thursday.

Photo: AP

The Premier League’s new fast-track rules state that an appeal hearing must be held within 12 weeks of an appeal being lodged, with a decision due within 30 days of the hearing concluding.

However, City is expected to argue the rules were not in place when they were originally charged in February 2023.

The breadth of the fallout facing Manchester City extends well beyond soccer sanctions.

On Thursday, the chair of the Treasury Committee asked Britain’s tax authority HMRC what action it was taking in response to the Premier League’s findings.

Meg Hillier said she had written to HMRC Permanent Secretary JP Marks following the publication on Tuesday of the independent commission ruling that the club had committed “well over 100 individual breaches of the Premier League Rules across the course of many seasons.”

Sports lawyers have predicted years of further litigation as rival clubs, players and agents assess whether they may have grounds to pursue compensation claims connected to the case.