Man City FFP: UEFA punishment ‘leaked’ as City set for ‘7 to 10 year’ ban from all competitions
UEFA are reportedly close to announcing a Manchester City ban from all European competition ‘for a period of 7 to 10 years’ as punishment for their nine years of financial doping.
City were found guilty of breaching 114 Premier League rules by an independent commission last month, as the panel found them to have used ‘sham’ sponsorship deals to boost they earnings by around £900m between 2009 and 2018.
The club have now appealed that verdict as they insist upon their innocence and claim they have ‘irrefutable evidence’ to prove it, in the form of documents showing that the sponsorship funds came from the Abu Dhabi government rather from their owners.
READ: Man City FFP: PL clubs could go rogue and impose eight unsanctioned punishments
The initial three-man commission has already seen this evidence and ‘concluded it was an explanation that the club had concocted well after the event in an attempt to conceal the realities of the Disguised Funding Scheme’, but City hope an all-new panel will rule in their favour.
Possible punishments include fines, transfer bans, points deductions and even Premier League expulsion, while it’s also been suggested the club should have their titles stripped in a retrospective action.
Five of the charges were a failure to comply with UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules and Colombian broadcaster and commentator Cesar Augusto Londoño, who boasts 1m followers on X, has now leaked that the European government body are set to impose the most severe punishment in its history.
He posted on October 15: ‘UEFA is reportedly close to announcing that, if Manchester City is found guilty following its appeal, it will be expelled from all European competitions for a period of 7 to 10 years.
‘Under that measure, it would be unable to participate in the Champions League, Europa League, and Conference League. The club was found guilty of 115 financial violations in the first instance.’
Minimum points deduction
Meanwhile, football finance expert Kieran Maguire believes the precedent set by Everton and Nottingham Forest being deducted six and four Premier League points respectively for a single PSR breach means the City sanction “has to be multiple double figures of points”.
He told GIVEMESPORT’s Market Madness podcast: “The redacted report sets out year by year how much the sham contracts contributed to the artificial commercial revenue.
“Over the rolling three-year period, in some years we could be talking about a £350million difference. That would shatter all records for PSR compliance.
“Everton and Nottingham Forest’s deductions covered a single breach in a single year, an overspend of no more than £20million. So is there a ceiling on what can be deducted?
“And the sanctions hearing could already have taken place. Because City are appealing and everyone has NDAs, we might not know the sanction until the appeal result. But it has to be multiple double figures of points, before you start the calculations.
“I worked out that if you add up nine years of Champions League non-participation for individual clubs at an average of £50million a time, around £20million for the Europa League, plus potential claims from players who missed bonuses, the Premier League’s legal fees and a fine, we’re talking in excess of a billion pounds regardless of the points deduction.”