Man City appear to ‘score victory’ in historic legal case as journalists reveal ‘huge development’
Daily Mail journalist Mike Keegan claims Man City ‘appear to have scored a victory over the Premier League on associated party transactions (APT)’.
The Premier League champions have challenged the league’s APT rules in a hearing which started and ended in June. It is believed that Man City challenged the validity of the rules under UK competition law.
The Times, which first reported details of Man City‘s claim, said the club were seeking to scrap the rules, which were first introduced in December 2021 following the Saudi-led takeover of Newcastle United and were most recently strengthened in February.
The rules are designed to ensure any commercial deal or player transfer between a club and entities with links to that club’s ownership are conducted at fair market value, so that club revenues are not artificially inflated.
If an arbitration panel declares the APT rules invalid, then clubs would effectively be free to do any commercial deals they wished without any independent judgement being made on whether those deals were for fair market value.
That could then in turn help clubs boost their declared revenue and give them greater leeway on transfer and wages spending under financial sustainability rules. There are fears it could lead to the clubs whose owners have the deepest pockets – Man City and Newcastle – effectively being in a league of their own in terms of spending.
The Times said Man City’s lawyers had claimed in their submission that the club had been the victims of discrimination and subjected to “a tyranny of the majority” as a result of these rules.
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That has raised fears of a potential governance crisis for the Premier League should there be any successful challenge to its rule-making process, which currently requires a 14-club majority vote for any motion to be approved.
The Times reported that between 10 and 12 clubs had offered their support in some form or other to the Premier League’s defence of this case, while one club had submitted a witness statement in support of Man City.
It is unclear what, if any, bearing this claim could have on the separate matter of the 115 charges brought by the Premier League against Man City over alleged breaches of the league’s financial rules.
And now Daily Mail journalist Keegan has revealed a ‘potentially huge development’ in Man City’s APT case against the Premier League.
Keegan wrote on X: ‘MAJOR BREAKING: Manchester City appear to have scored a victory over the Premier League on APTs after a vote to amend rules was pulled at the last-minute from this morning’s clubs meeting.
‘Could well indicate City have been successful in their legal challenge (eg: no point amending rules that may soon be changed/removed). Potentially huge development. Story @MailSport shortly.’
The Times released their version of the story first and added more meat to the bone. Matt Lawton and Martyn Ziegler wrote:
‘The Times understands the 20 Premier League clubs were due to vote on an amendment to rules specific to the database at the shareholders’ meeting in central London on Thursday. The clubs were to be asked to vote on restricting access to the databank. The vote would have meant regulatory commissions and arbitration panels could not have given access to individual clubs to use the databank to acquire commercial information about rival clubs.
‘However, the planned vote on the amendment was removed from the agenda late last night, even though more specific details of what the amendment regarded were not included.
‘According to sources, the “last minute” withdrawal is being interpreted as an indication that a City legal team, led by Lord Pannick KC, have certainly enjoyed some success in convincing an independent panel that the rules on sponsorship deals need to be changed.
‘Further to that, it may also suggest that it was deemed pointless making one amendment if an issue with the databank actually has wider implications for all the rules regarding APTs.’