The Premier League’s decision to charge Manchester City with breaching its financial rules has dealt a blow to the domestic game.
The Premier League champions have become a dominant force in English football in recent years, winning six league titles since being taken over by Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008.
But how did the city get here? How important are the charges? And can they really be kicked out of the Premier League?
Why are Man City being blamed?
After an investigation lasting more than four years, the Premier League released a statement on Monday saying it had accused City of more than 100 breaches of financial rules from 2009 to 2018.
“In terms of the allegations, there are two areas,” football finance expert Kieran Maguire told JEE News.
“Firstly, the allegation that Manchester City has artificially inflated the money coming into the club, particularly in relation to commercial and sponsorship deals. It seems that the Premier League is claiming that this money is actually came from the owner of the club, which does not count in FFP (Financial Fair Play), but was being disguised as sponsorship income, which does count in FFP.
“Other allegations relate to Manchester City, which is accused of artificially tying the costs of running the club to the owners by placing managers on contract with another company so they can only manage it. Use a small element of actual cost. Club by books.”
How did the city get here?
In November 2018, German newspaper Der Spiegel published leaked documents alleging that City inflated the value of sponsorship deals and deliberately misled UEFA in order to comply with FFP rules. Therefore, clubs also need to be broken.
Following the allegations, UEFA launched an investigation and ruled in 2020 that City had committed “serious breaches” of FFP regulations between 2012 and 2016.
However, later that year the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) overturned the two-year ban from European competitions.
The Premier League’s investigation began in December 2018. City said the allegations were “completely false” and that the allegations in Der Spiegel stemmed from “illegal hacking and the out-of-context publication of City emails”.
Why now?
City said they were not given advance warning of the Premier League’s statement this week.
He questioned the timing – the UK government’s white paper on football governance is due to be published this month. It is felt that bringing the case is likely to be used by the Premier League as evidence to deal with governance issues themselves rather than a proposed independent regulator.
“It would be good for the league to have some teeth and a member – and a shareholder – fight, so we’re entering an era of lobbying and politics. There’s little agreement that the two are one. Happened at the same time. Time],” Maguire said.
“There’s a lot of dark arts of politics going on and football is being used as a vehicle for that. We’ve had an era of self-regulation within football and it’s brought us to this point. Given where we are.”
JEE News said: “It’s easy to see why City insiders are skeptical about the timing.
“While the timing is interesting, the sheer number of allegations perhaps shows why the Premier League has taken so long to get here.
“However, many will call the suggestion that this is linked to the delay in the football regulator’s white paper because it is being delayed. After all, the reality is that it took four years for the Premier League to actually bring charges. , externally strengthens the case rather than weakens regulation.
“Furthermore, if the Premier League wanted to send a message to the government that it could self-regulate, it would surely have done so some time ago, before the regulator’s plans were finalised.”
