Facing 115 charges, Manchester City are suing the Premier League. Here’s why

What are City arguing?

Within a 165-page legal document, City claim they are being unlawfully targeted by rivals to stifle their success. The club argues the league’s democratic system of 14 clubs being able to implement rule change gives the majority unacceptable levels of control.

City are seeking “damages for the losses which it has incurred as a result of the unlawfulness of the FMV [fair market value] rules”, the claim states. One potential target that could have been delayed as a result of the rule is winger Savio, on loan last season at Girona, part of the City Football Group empire.

The rules were “deliberately intended to stifle commercial freedoms of particular clubs in particular circumstances, and thus to restrict economic competition”, the claim, first reported by Britain’s The Times newspaper, says.

“There is no rational or logical connection between a club’s financial non-sustainability and its receipt of revenues from entities linked to ownerships.”

In his summary of the case, Daniel Gore, a senior associate at law firm Withers, says City are “challenging the contract which exists between the clubs themselves and the league”.

What do rivals fear?

Some clubs believe the first shots have been fired in a war that could ultimately lead to the end of all financial controls.

City will know they are not alone in seeking to loosen constraints. Chelsea and Newcastle both have shirt sponsors with close links to their ownership. Smaller regimes, however, are desperately hoping the Premier League is successful over the next fortnight. The 12 clubs who voted through the rule changes in February should be counted on to rally behind the top tier.

Gore warns the consequences for all clubs could be significant.

“These rules provide a shield against an unrestricted sporting arms race between the most-wealthy owners, funnelling money into their club through parties they control and increasing the notional profitability of their club,” the lawyer says.

“If a challenge to the legality of these APTs can succeed then it is not inconceivable that someone might try to challenge the overarching Profitability and Sustainability rules more generally and this could reverse the moves to ensure that clubs operate within their means – something people may argue has increased the overall competitiveness of the Premier League and reduced clubs going insolvent.”

What does this mean for City’s 115 charges?

Launching the legal challenge now is a key part in City’s aggressive strategy to weaken the league ahead of their biggest fight of all in the spring.

Time and resources spent preparing for next week’s case eats into the top tier’s legal team preparations for facing a City legal team again in November. In terms of the precedent set by evidence raised next week, the challenge next week to the fundamental mechanism of a two-thirds majority vote could prove particularly destabilising later in the year.

“It is hard to see how effective governance could take place without a threshold such as this, so Man City’s challenge could plunge the Premier League’s governance structure into chaos and make it harder for any decision to take place,” explains Gore. “This move might be seen by some sceptics as Man City trying to manoeuvre the narrative and legal arguments in its favour, ahead of its own defence of the 115 charges.”

Dan Chapman, a sports lawyer and partner at Norwich’s Leathes Prior, says his “immediate instinct”, however, is that an unlawful verdict in a fortnight should “not be of major significance to the 115 charges”.

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“If City thought that rules were unlawful to which they were subject over many, many years and were now, only in 2024, raising that, I do not see that would likely be a terribly attractive argument for any regulatory commission hearing the charges based on the laws as they then were,” he adds.

“I can understand if they establish the APT rules introduced in 2021 are unlawful that it would mean anyone charged post-2021 would have something to say about it, but I do not immediately see the direct link between this and the bulk of the 115 charges.

“That said, of course, symbolically, I suppose, if City were to win this case, it certainly gives them a significant moral high ground or PR footing to argue that a lot of the charges that they face, under the historical regulations, would not necessarily be brought under whatever amended regulations emerge from the outcome of these proceedings.”

Telegraph, London