2024-10-07 14:22:35
Manchester City have won their first legal battle against the Premier League and their associated clubs’ rules are to be reviewed for breaches of UK competition laws.
City denounced the Premier this year for believing that the current Associated Clubs (APT) regulation is discriminatory, goes against free market and competition laws and has been promoted by the rest of the clubs to hinder their success on the football field. field.
City confirmed in a statement that they had won the case over 25 of these rules and that this initiative is against the law and that the Premier League’s decisions regarding the sponsorships of two clubs have been annulled. These sponsorships are linked to Etihad and Abu Dhabi Bank.
Competition prompted the drafting of these rules in 2021 to prevent Newcastle United, bought at the time by the Saudi Arabian investment fund, from inflating their accounts with sponsorships from the same country and the same owner.
Currently a third of City’s promotional business comes from the United Arab Emirates, the same country that bought the Manchester club in 2008.
According to the statement published by Manchester City and supported by a 164-page legal document, the original APT rules and the current ones “breach UK competition laws”, as well as the fact that the Premier League “has abused its position dominant” “.
The independent tribunal found that the laws were “structurally unfair” and that the Premier League was “particularly unfair” in the way it applied them to clubs. These too “were discriminatory” and the Court itself highlighted that there was an “unjustified delay” in assessing the fair market price of the club’s two transactions, which is why the Premier “broke his own rules”.
The court found that City’s deal with Etihad was “unfairly” blocked this year because City was not given the opportunity to respond to the Premier League’s review of the deal.
In the case of Abu Dhabi Bank, the judges certified that City did not receive information from other clubs on the database used by the competition to determine what the fair market value is.
This decision could also have a significant impact on the rest of the clubs because, according to the resolution, the current rules do not take into account, for the purposes of financial fair play, the interest-free loans that some clubs receive.
The three-judge panel that analyzed the case ruled that of the existing £4,000 million in loans to the Premier League, £1,500 million came from the club owners themselves.
City argued that these loans are neither fair nor in line with the market price, as they carry no interest and therefore in many cases did not have to be paid.
If the rules are changed, as expected after this court victory, these loans will have to be accounted for and could lead to clubs such as Arsenal, with a loan debt of £260 million, and Everton, with £450 million, breaking financial “fair play”.
The lawyer who handled the City case, Lord Pannick, is the same one who leads the ‘Sky Blues’ in the battle for the 115 financial charges that the Premier League accuses them of and who has been under discussion for two weeks in a trial London. That case and this one are not related.
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