How Man City appeal could be ‘undermined’ as UEFA ‘considers’ taking action after latest development

Manchester City have allegedly suffered a blow in their appeal against the guilty verdict for 114 charges brought against them by the Premier League.

It was confirmed by the Premier League at the end of September that City have been found guilty of all charges relating to serious breaches of the league’s financial rules and the majority of charges in relation to its failure to co-operate with the investigation.

The Citizens have been accused of arranging "sham" contracts with several commercial partners to disguise secret funding of more than £830m and artificially inflate revenues between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons.

Five of those charges relate to City failing to comply with UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules which, at the time, limited clubs spending what they earned within set break-even requirements.

Although Premier League CEO Richard Masters has said that the findings show that Man City "systematically broke Premier League rules for nearly a decade,” the Citizens continue to insist that they are “innocent” and they lodged an appeal last Friday.

Man City evidence may ‘undermine’ appeal as UEFA ‘monitor’ developments

However, according to The Times, evidence given by Man City to UEFA could ‘undermine’ their appeal against the “sham” sponsorship allegations.

The report adds that City informed UEFA over six years ago that two £15m payments in 2012 and 2013 came from Jaber Mohamed, the general director of the UAE’s Crown Prince Court (CPC).

However, City are said to have withheld Mohamed's CPC links from UEFA, claiming instead that the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) arranged the transactions; these funds were supposedly meant to come from majority UAE-owned sponsor Etisalat.

While City's current defence argues that the Abu Dhabi government actually funded these "sham" sponsorships, they allegedly failed to disclose this in their original evidence to UEFA years ago.

A separate report from Sky Sports News claims that UEFA are ‘monitoring’ developments with Man City’s case and will wait until the end of the Premier League's disciplinary process before deciding whether to take any potential action against the club.

This comes after the Football Association stated last week that they are “carefully considering the decision and its implications and will take action where appropriate”, should City’s guilty verdict be upheld.

Man City and UEFA have history with legal cases

In 2020, UEFA handed City a two-year European ban and a €30m (£25.4m) fine after finding them guilty of committing "serious breaches" of UEFA club licensing and Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.

However, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) later overturned the ban and slashed the fine to €10m (£8.5m), ruling that UEFA failed to prove the club's owners disguised equity funding as sponsorships.

CAS also noted that many of UEFA's allegations were dismissed due to its strict five-year statute of limitations, while the Premier League operates without any such time limits and its investigators are able to scrutinise a much larger window of time.

Furthermore, the Premier League had access to a vast body of new evidence and internal documents that UEFA did not possess when its case was originally triggered by the 2018 Der Spiegel email leaks.

City insist that the leaked documents were "out-of-context materials purportedly hacked or stolen" as part of an "organised and clear attempt to damage the club's reputation".

What next for Man City and their appeal?

An new three-person independent commission will now oversee Man City’s appeal, assessing whether the previous panel have made any errors of law, misinterpreted the rules, or acted with gross unfairness.

No sanctions have been published by the Premier League just yet, and it is allegedly hoped that an outcome can be made before the end of the year.