Manchester City could face years of legal battles after Premier League verdict: Experts

Manchester City has strongly denied any wrongdoing and insists on innocence. | Photo Credit: AFP

Manchester City’s dispute with the Premier League over alleged financial-rule breaches could remain unresolved for years, with an appeal and possible claims from rival football clubs further threatening to extend a process that has already had major implications for English football.

The Premier League said on Tuesday that Manchester City had used “sham” commercial agreements to artificially boost income and reduce reported costs by more than 900 million pounds sterling over almost 10 years.

Furthermore, the incident has raised questions about the fairness of the whole competition and whether the league can effectively hold regulations over its biggest participating clubs.

“Unless the Premier League take control and bang their heads together, and say, right, this is it, it could take years,” London-based sports barrister Yasin Patel told Reuters. “There’s clubs now looking to sue for loss of income, bit like the Burnley-Everton situation. That hasn’t been resolved yet, there’s an ongoing appeal.”

Patel was referring to the Premier League’s decision brought out in June that Everton should pay Burnley around 35 million pound sterling in compensation.

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The ruling related to the impact of Everton’s 2022 financial-rule breach, when Burnley was relegated. Everton rejected the outcome, with its appeal due to be heard in January 2027.

Patel said further compensation cases could emerge from clubs that believe they missed out on promotion, trophies, European qualification or transfer opportunities because of Manchester City’s alleged conduct.

“There’s others who will have been potentially promoted. There’s trophies that were lost, European places that could have been won or lost, even certain players signing for Man City, who may have been signed by Hull or wherever; they lost the opportunity to sign that player,” Patel remarked.

It is not known whether the Premier League will reveal any sanction before the appeal is considered, or whether a punishment would be enforced immediately. A league representative declined to discuss the matter for further answers.

“I reckon their sanctions will be heard sooner rather than later,” Patel said. “But then potentially, because they’ll be appealing a decision, the sanctions won’t come into play until after the appeal is heard.”

Football finance expert Stefan Borson also said the appeal on liability was likely to be dealt with before any debate over a possible penalty.

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“(I believe) that they’ve decided that the most expeditious way to get an outcome here is to say, right, there’s the findings on the liability phase let’s test those on appeal. Then we can come back and deal with sanction later. But then of course, probably suspended pending the appeal.”

The appeal by Manchester City is set to be heard by a newly appointed three-person panel.

Yasin Patel also added: “If these findings are correct, and fraud and (false) statements have led to, let’s say, money laundering of some form, then is that a matter that should be investigated by the police?”

Alex Goodchild, a sports lawyer at Bray & Krais, said that the reports of the Premier League’s decision emerging before its formal publication could give City grounds to challenge the process.

“The leak does, to an extent, lend them some material because maybe someone like Arsenal, Man United, Liverpool, sort of closest rivals, they’ve leaked this to haul Man City into the sort of court of public opinion and give them terrible publicity,” he told Reuters.

The looming possibility of relegation could also place Manchester City’s squad under intense scrutiny. Patel and Goodchild have said it is common for players’ contracts to include release clauses.

These clauses usually only become active if a club is relegated to a lower rank, which implies that other clubs now have a chance to sign Manchester City players for reduced fees.