IF Premier League bosses thought they might get the chance to draw breath in the aftermath of the latest legal case with Manchester City, they were wrong.
Instead, an email from City’s senior lawyer to the other 19 top-flight clubs has underlined just how deeply the battle lines have been drawn.
And legal counsel Simon Cliff’s target seems to be Premier League chief executive Richard Masters.
City blame the Prem’s chief executive of a competition for the fact they are currently sitting in a London “courtroom” denying the “115 charges” of alleged financial rule-breaking.
Abu Dhabi-backed City’s other legal fight with the Prem was over the league’s rules on commercial deals involving clubs’ owners — with the verdict announced in an explosive 175-page document on Monday.
And by accusing Prem bosses of “misleading” the other 19 clubs in their overview of the ruling by the three-man Arbitration Tribunal headed by Lord Dyson, City were demonstrating, once again, that they do not care about “playing nice”.
The majority of their rule challenges were deemed to have failed by the tribunal.
But the club insist their wins were far more substantial — and have effectively undermined the Prem’s entire rulebook.
According to Cliff — whose arguments in the email are being vehemently and emphatically denied by the Prem — the Associated Party Transaction rules voted into place against their wishes in February are now utterly redundant and simply no longer apply.
Cliff, described the league’s own summary of the decision as “misleading” and containing “several inaccuracies”.
FOOTBALL FREE BETS AND SIGN UP DEALS
And he wrote: “The Tribunal declared the APT rules to be unlawful.
“Manchester City’s position is that this means all of the APT rules are null and void.
“While it is true that Manchester City did not succeed with every point it ran in its legal challenge, the club did not need to prove the APT rules are unlawful for lots of different reasons. It is enough that they are illegal for one reason.”
By telling other top-flight clubs City were at their disposal to “assist members with their understanding” of the ruling and offer “clarifications” of a “peculiar” reading of the decision.
Cliff knew exactly what he was doing. The game is afoot.
City believe they can now use the questions being asked around Prem boardrooms to effectively chip away at club support for Masters.
Questioning their competence AND integrity is all part of that campaign.
The demands in the Prem rulebook say that all clubs behave “in utmost good faith” towards the league and each other, which is being used by City as a two-edged sword.
But there was a more direct attack, too.
The competition’s response to the this week’s judgement suggested that all that was required was a tweak of “a small number of discrete elements” of the rules.
It insisted the main framework of the regulations remained valid.
SunSport has been told that the Prem stands by all of its arguments since the judgement and that the arbitration panel’s ruling underpinned the concept of the APT regulations.
While the 20 clubs have been summoned to attend a meeting next week — a direct result of the case outcome.
However the emergency talks are being described as a “discussion” over how the rules could be changed to comply, with no actual vote on proposals planned.
During the arbitration process, Chelsea, Newcastle and Everton acted as witnesses for City.
Meanwhile, written statements to support the Prem were provided by Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, West Ham, Brentford, Bournemouth and Fulham.
There is understood to be considerable anger at the tone of Cliff’s email with counter-accusations being made that City’s claims do not hold water.
Yet that does not diminish City’s position that they have been vindicated and that the Prem has suffered a brutal defeat.
Even if it is not directly related to the separate ongoing case, expected to reach a finish in March.
By Martin Lipton
BOTH Manchester City and the Premier League were claiming a win after their legal scrap over Associated Party Transactions.
SunSport sifts the claims to try to explain the latest issues.
What was the case about?
City were furious that Prem bosses brought in new tougher regulations – by the smallest possible majority under League rules – in February. They were aimed at blocking clubs bypassing financial controls by earning “unfair” amounts via sponsorship from a company with the same owners, or selling players on the cheap to teams under the same ownership umbrella.
Why were City so upset?
The Etihad club argued that the rules were illegal and had been deliberately aimed at them by rivals and were both flawed and politically driven. They also branded the “two thirds support” rule that has been part of Prem regulations since its inception as a “tyranny of the majority”
This was an Arbitration Tribunal – explain that?
Under Prem rules, any club has the right to ask for Arbitration if they are unhappy about the regulations or due process. The three retired judges heard evidence in June and their full ruling was distributed to the 20 Prem clubs on Monday afternoon.
And what did they say?
Depending on who you listen to, they either totally vindicated one side or the other. The actual answer is that there were “wins” for both City and the Prem. But it’s your choice which ones meant more.
OK, what were City’s wins?
Maybe the most important one in terms of the repercussions. That both the new rules and the previous version – brought in after Saudi Arabia’s PIF bought Newcastle in 2021 – were “unlawful” as they exclude shareholder loans to clubs in any APT calculations. City also won over their claims that the rulebook prevented them from responding to Prem decisions over whether two proposed deals with Abu Dhabi companies represented “Fair Market Value”, access to the “databank” of comparable deals and the time it took for decisions to be reached.
That sounds pretty big. So what about the Prem’s side?
The key finding as far as the League is concerned is that the Tribunal backed the concept of APT rules as well as the Fair Market Value tests. Additionally, City’s challenges to the actual decisions on the two proposed deals “failed”. Prem bosses insist the “rulebook has been found to comply with competition and public law standards and is an effective and necessary system”.
Is that it, then?
Of course not. That shareholder loan issue is a big deal, given that it is believed owners have loaned around £1.5bn at low or preferential rates across the Prem. Those loans will almost certainly have to be calculated at commercial rates now, unless the owners convert them into shares. But the League is convinced the main thrust of the rules remains valid.
And what will be the impact on the “115 charges” case?
Probably nothing. That is an allegation of breaking the rules, while this matter was City questioning whether one small element of the current rulebook was legitimate. But City are using the same legal team, headed by £10,000 per hour Lord Pannick KC. And the stakes on the bigger case are a great deal higher.
