Manchester City still have significant hope in escaping from their recent Premier League charges with minimal punishment – based on a “core argument”.
Last month, an independent Commission found Manchester City guilty of all charges related to breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules over nine seasons, with a plethora of charges in relation to failure to cooperate with the league’s investigation.
In a statement, Richard Masters, Chief Executive of the Premier League, said, “The club systematically broke Premier League Rules for nearly a decade,” adding that “it is a key responsibility of the Premier League to ensure that the Rules, approved by the clubs themselves, are upheld to protect the integrity of the competition”.
Manchester City have hope of getting off from charges – but perhaps not all of them
Speaking on a recent edition of the Talking City podcast, Manchester Evening News’ chief Manchester City writer Simon Bajkowski explained the club’s stance following their appeal against the Premier League’s charges, stating that City “don’t need to overturn everything” – and that should they simply prove that they haven’t broken the rules regarding their “funding scheme”, they could still escape some punishments.
“It seems like City have a mountain to overcome – and it is a mountain, but it’s not a multitude of things: it’s basically a core argument,” Bajkowski said of the appeal.
“And when City say they have irrefutable evidence, it is to show that: their evidence shows that the money did not come from Man City to the sponsors to then go back into Man City’s books. It came from the Abu Dhabi government to the sponsors, which then paid Manchester City… so the money has come from the Abu Dhabi government rather than the club [which is] not against the rules.”
Bajkowski noted that the Sky Blues were “stunned” by the verdict, but notes that there is hope that “a different set of eyes” – a new three-person commission assembled to examine the original decision rather than rehear the case in its entirety, following the club’s appeal – will see the situation differently.
“There was a mention that the club had a number of criticisms about the process and the way that the Premier League had brought everything against City, and you imagine that would be run again [in the appeal],” he said.
“City mentioned an unsafe verdict, and reading between the lines, it’s that it has taken so long for a verdict, [that] how can you be so sure that witnesses were untrue, or whatever, if you are thinking back two years to when they were on the stand?
“City are appealing the guilty verdicts because they think they have cause and evidence, but also they have paid people very handsomely to be in the room for the 11 weeks when it actually took place.
“And the reason why it stunned people at City when they were found guilty of so many things is that these people are experienced in knowing how a case was going, and the feeling after those 11 weeks was certainly not, ‘Well, we’ve lost on every count.’
“So there is a sense that a different set of eyes may have a different view.”
City travel to Liverpool this weekend when Premier League action resumes after the international break.
