Man City FFP: ‘Main’ PL ‘success’ revealed despite APT ’embarrassment’; Guardiola’s side ‘win on penalties’

A leading sports lawyer claims the APT case between Manchester City and the Premier League was only “won on penalties” by Pep Guardiola’s side.

Earlier this year, Man City launched an unprecedented legal battle against the Premier League as they campaigned for the removal of Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules.

On Monday, the verdict of the APT hearing surfaced and a statement from Man City revealed eight findings that proved the Premier League ‘breached its own rules’. 

The Premier League have challenged this sentiment, claiming Man City were “unsuccessful in the majority of their challenge”. 

The conflict is continuing as it’s since emerged that Man City have written to their league rivals and suggested that have been ‘misled’ by the Premier League.

The butting of heads between Man City and the Premier League is likely to continue in the coming months as the Financial Fair Play hearing is underway.

City were charged with breaching over 100 of the Premier League’s FFP rules at the start of 2023 and could potentially be expelled from the top flight if found guilty.

A verdict on this case is expected to be reached at the start of 2023 and lawyer Simon Leaf claims Man City only “won” the APT hearing “on penalties after extra time”.

“It’s hard to argue that Manchester City haven’t won. Maybe you’d say they’ve won on penalties after extra time, because quite conceivably the Premier League can point to a lot of the points in this decision that support the development of its rules, and the rules themselves,” Leaf said.

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“It is a relatively minor issue that has been picked up by this panel, which is undoubtedly embarrassing but by no means the end of the world for the Premier League.”

Leaf has also revealed the “main area where the Premier League  was successful”.

“My understanding is that Man City were seeking to challenge the rules as a whole, and ultimately, one suspects that what a more decisive victory would have looked like from their perspective would have been the rules being completely scrapped,” Leaf added.

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“Where we’ve ended up is that actually we’re likely to see a broader set of rules (to include shareholder loans).

“The panel has said the rules didn’t go far enough and now need to be expanded to cover this particular part of the financing. This is one of the main areas where the Premier League was successful – the panel did quite conclusively say that having these types of (APT) rules in place is lawful.

“It shouldn’t change the value of these deals, but it maybe makes it slightly easier for the clubs to try to challenge a Premier League finding that a deal was not undertaken at fair market value, because clubs will now effectively see the Premier League’s ‘working-out’ at an earlier stage in the process.”