MANCHESTER CITY chief Ferran Soriano has vowed to clear the club’s name – and insisted the allegations which led to the club’s two year European ban are “not true”. Uefa handed down the shock punishment on Friday after finding City were guilty of financial wrong-doing for a second time. City have said they will take […]
MANCHESTER CITY chief Ferran Soriano has vowed to clear the club’s name – and insisted the allegations which led to the club’s two year European ban are “not true”.
Uefa handed down the shock punishment on Friday after finding City were guilty of financial wrong-doing for a second time.
City have said they will take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in a bid to clear their name and avoid a costly European exile.
And Soriano has broken his silence to say the club will “do everything that can be done to prove the allegations are false”.
Uefa say City have fallen foul of their financial fair play rules for a second time – after being found guilty in summer 2014.
They believe sponsorship deals declared by City on their balance sheet were inflated by the club’s Abu Dhabi owners.
Soriano said: “Well the most important thing I have to say today is that the allegations are not true. They are simply not true.
“The owner has not put money in this club that has not been properly declared. We are a sustainable football club, we are profitable, we don’t have debt.
“Our accounts have been scrutinised many times, by auditors, by regulators, by investors and this is perfectly clear.
“The fans can be sure of two things. The first one is that the allegations are false. And the second is that we will do everything that can be done to prove so.
“We know the fans are supporting us. We can feel it. City fans have gone through challenges over the decades. This is just another challenge.”
City are set to lodge their appeal to CAS in the next few days and hope the matter can be resolved before the summer.
Soriano added: “We are looking for an early resolution obviously through a thorough process and a fair process.
“So my best hope is that this will be finished before the beginning of the summer and until then for us, it is business as usual.”
Uefa’s punishment came as a surprise, with many believing they would ban City from Europe for a single season.
Their statement said that the club had not co-operated with the process – something which Soriano has now strenuously denied.
Ultimately based on our experience and our perception this seems to be less about justice and more about politics
Manchester City chief Ferran Soriano
He said: “We did cooperate with this process. We delivered a long list of documents and support that we believe is irrefutable evidence that the claims are not true.
“It was hard because we did this in the context of information being leaked to the media in the context of feeling that every step of the way, every engagement we had.
“We felt that we were considered guilty before anything was even discussed, but at the end, this is an internal process that has been initiated and then prosecuted and then judged by this FFP chamber at Uefa.
“This was our experience, this is the way we felt all the way through this process. Of course a lot of people come now and say, well what were you expecting? This is the way it works.
“You should have expected a negative outcome the way the system is designed. But we didn’t believe that. We worked very hard.
“We provided the evidence but in the end this FFP Investigatory Chamber relied more on out of context stolen emails than all the other evidence we provided of what actually happened.
“I think it is normal that we feel like we feel. Ultimately based on our experience and our perception this seems to be less about justice and more about politics.”
Soriano said he is looking forward to City being given a fair hearing as they go before CAS for a second time.
Previously they tried to get the case thrown out before it had been heard by the UEFA chamber as they did not like the way it was heading.
Soriano added: “This is how the system works. We went to CAS mid process because it was clear to us that we were not having a fair process and we were concerned.
“We were specifically concerned about the leaks, the constant leak of information. CAS said there was merit in our complaint, they said that the leaks were ‘worrisome’.
“They said they would judge it when process has finished. The process has finished now, we are going to CAS again
“All we are looking for is a proper adjudication in an independent and impartial body that is going to take the time to look at all the evidence and look at it without preconception.
“I am also looking for the end of this process maybe to put a pen under this undertone that we are hearing all the time that anything that we do, any result that we get is based only on money and not on talent and effort.
“The 100s of people that work at this club know this is not true that it is about effort and talent so maybe in the end, this is an opportunity. “
Pep Guardiola is expected to get questions about the punishment and his own future after the Premier League game against West Ham on Wednesday night.
But Soriano said: “Obviously, Pep has been kept informed about this process but this is not something for him to respond to.
“He is focussed on the football, he is focussing on the game, the game at hand, the game today, tomorrow and the next weeks.
“As well as the players. They are calm, they are focussed and this matter is more a business matter, a legal matter than a football manner.”
