Manchester City have once again been charged with misrepresenting their financial position.
After appealing the UEFA decision in 2019, the Blues felt vindicated when the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) sided with their case and completely overturned a two-year ban from the Champions League. The club have welcomed an independent commission to look into the Premier League charges, hoping for a similar outcome.
But the Blues were fined by CAS for not co-operating fully with the original investigation, and have been similarly accused by the Premier League. From the little that has been made publicly available of the investigation, it is clearly possible to see that those charges at the very least could stick.
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Would that be enough, though, for the Premier League to claim a victory in bringing such major accusations against the reigning champions. Not according to football finance expert Kieran Maguire, who believes that the allegations are so powerful that there will need to be serious repercussions at the top of at least one of the organisations at the end of it.
"If you look at the charges as an overall body of work the Premier League have effectively said that Manchester City have systematically misrepresented their finances for a period of at least nine years in order to gain an advantage," he said. "Trying to break it down into individual accusations, you're looking at a million here, half a million there. It isn't actually that significant but as a whole body of work, as a culture of financial misrepresentation, it is a huge allegation and it goes to the very top of the club.
"The outcome depends on which charges stick. If ultimately the only thing the Premier League gets success on is Manchester City dragging their heels, then I think they will look fairly foolish. Surely, such is the severity of the allegations and accusations that the position for one of the two parties is going to be untenable by the end of this.
"Either Manchester City have systematically misrepresented their financial statements or the Premier League have put together a spurious case on the back of lobbying by other clubs who don't like Man City and will look as if they are the patsies of those clubs."
The feeling at City on Monday was that there was a political motivation to the Premier League making such a strong statement just before the government was set to publish a White Paper on football regulation that was expected to recommend the need for an independent body. By showcasing over 100 alleged breaches by one of their biggest teams, the Premier League could be said to be disproving that recommendation.
Regardless of the timing, it will not change anything for the Blues if they are found to have committed these breaches. They will have to accept the punishment they are given for thinking that they could bypass the laws of competition that they had signed up to.
If City were found guilty it would cast doubt over their achievements over their achievements under Sheikh Mansour, with evidence that three Premier League titles were won while misrepresenting their financial position. However, beyond the Etihad it would also reopen the question of the intended and actual purpose of Financial Fair Play, which has long been a bone of contention among Blues.
"It would certainly taint their achievements in the eyes of many," said Maguire. "The achievements on the pitch and in terms of talent recruitment are absolutely fantastic and I don't think they necessarily spent more money than other clubs. They certainly haven't spent more money than Chelsea.
"But it then calls into question what is the purpose of FFP. Is it there to prevent new money from challenging old money, is it there to create a cartel? There are broader issues at play here than just Manchester City.
"The Premier League are claiming this investigation shows their ability to regulate but I think it actually suggests the opposite. Given that these charges go back to 2009, have they been asleep at the wheel for a long time? I know they've accused Man City of prevaricating but that is only since 2018.
"This investigation has taken longer than World War One. That is an indictment of their ability to gather evidence rather than having an independent regulator with powers similar to those of HMRC.
"HMRC can turn up and say we are walking away with your laptops and we have the power to do so. The Premier League send you an email back and then get an email back once you've come back off on holiday, and so on. There has been no urgency, it has all been done in secret, which has created an information vacuum."
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