City launch legal action against the Premier League | Club & PL reach settlement | Proceedings dropped (p1147)

gordondaviesmoustache said:
People who say the 115 and the APT are not related are merely thinking legally or evidentially. That may be correct, but they are definitely strategically and quite probably tactically related.

Think we will definitely have done stuff in one, with the other in mind. So that covers tactical.

No question they are strategically related. Absurd to suggest otherwise, given the proximity in time to each other.

So they are related.
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a bedouin tent (bayt al-sha'ar) has many chambers.
 
Coatigan said:
They can't, and you haven't.

You have just said some stuff. But it is both wrong and irrelevant. That's not debating it.

Am I irrate, of course I am, simultaneously being ganged up on by multiple posters (who in fairness I do generally value and trust on here, hence I bother responding). All for not showing the same blind bravado over a statement of concession.
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Imo you’re wrong and wildly so mate.

Not ganging up one bit. We can agree to disagree that’s cool.
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
Do you think it might be imminent?
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Only if they put the blue cones out at the CFA. But you and I agree, even if others don't, that there's a clear linkage between 115 and APT.

The timing might be purely coincidental but don't you think there's a sense that the pieces are starting to fall into place?
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
Only if they put the blue cones out at the CFA. But you and I agree, even if others don't, that there's a clear linkage between 115 and APT.

The timing might be purely coincidental but don't you think there's a sense that the pieces are starting to fall into place?
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Clearly a link, even if as GDM says, a strategic one. Blows my mind that some posters aren’t having it.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
Only if they put the blue cones out at the CFA. But you and I agree, even if others don't, that there's a clear linkage between 115 and APT.

The timing might be purely coincidental but don't you think there's a sense that the pieces are starting to fall into place?
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There has to be a link. Why would the PL smooth the way for a new Etihad deal when they have essentially accused us of faking our deal with the same sponsor for ten years in another case? If the PL claims were true Etihad officials would have colluded with City over who was paying for the sponsorship.
 
WEMBLEY76 said:

Good article from Martin Samuel in the Times here about PL management style changing with Masters..​

At last, some Premier League common sense — but too late for 115 charges​


It is commendable that an agreement was reached with Manchester City despite the time and money wasted but both sides are in far too deep for a similar resolution to a much larger problem​

Martin Samuel
Tuesday September 09 2025, 5.55pm, The Times

Today, this column can exclusively reveal the outcome of the Premier League’s 115 charges against Manchester City. The winner is . . . nobody.

Not Manchester City, not the Premier League, not the other 19 clubs, not the brand, not the fans, not even the broadcasters for all the dramatic tension this saga has created. Lawyers have been made even wealthier, reporters have been kept in headlines, although there remains personal scepticism about the public appetite for another internecine squabble around football’s seemingly never-ending list of regulations. Yet does anyone get to have their arm raised in acknowledgment of a knockout after 12 rounds of attritional slugging? Almost certainly not. The Associated Party Transaction (APT) resolution tells us that.

At roughly 3pm on Monday it was announcedthat — well, what was announced, actually? Nothing that could not have been resolved over a pot of coffee and some pastries locked in a legal office in London about two years ago. One imagines that’s how Richard Scudamore, the predecessor to Richard Masters in the chief executive’s chair, might have done it.

Richard Scudamore with the Premier League trophy.

Scudamore preferred a lighter touch during his time as the Premier League’s chief executive.
Legal bills were not a drain on the financial health of clubs when Scudamore was in charge. He was a facilitator of the Premier League’s membership, a mediator, a negotiator, a smoother-over. At his leaving do at the German Gymnasium restaurant in London in 2018, a graph indicated the growth in broadcast revenues during his time. It looked like the north face of the Eiger. The owners and chairmen present kept gazing at it in awe.

Scudamore’s style was to protect the product by sitting down and working problems through. The light-touch regulator that football has been promised? That was Scudamore in a nutshell. He only went for West Ham United over Carlos Tevez because they lied. Had the club been truthful about some of the clauses in his contract, Scudamore has always insisted that the league would have registered the player, even allowed him to play that weekend, and then sat down with West Ham’s lawyers first thing on Monday morning to show them exactly how the contract would have to be structured and worded to stay legal.

This is not the style of the modern Premier League. Were the chairwoman, Alison Brittain, and Masters to depart now, the only graph resembling the Eiger would indicate what they had cost the clubs in legal fees — about £50million in 2023-24, with significantly more likely to come. In City, in particular, it faces an opponent with the wherewithal and motivation to match its very expensive legal habit. This, ultimately, may have forced a much-needed compromise.

Carlos Tevez of West Ham United dribbling past Fabio Simplicio of Palermo during a UEFA Cup match.

Scuadmore only went after West Ham after they lied about the signing of Tevez

So why, when the verdict on the 115 charges drops, can there only be losers? Well, like the APT verdict, neither side can hope to emerge entirely unscathed. This isn’t the Women’s Rugby World Cup. Nobody gets to win 115-0. Whatever goes against City, however big, however small, there will be reputational harm. Any defeat on any accusation will always be used by their detractors to place an asterisk against their achievements.

Equally, if the Premier League goes down again, it is personally humiliating for the present administration. This is its case, its pursuit, its strategy. After the debacle defeat against Leicester City and the scandal of the legal fees against Nottingham Forest — a case the Premier League actually won, with Forest admitting breaching Profitability and Sustainability Rules, yet it still ended up costing the league a fortune — it needs to get this one over the line, and significantly.

Yet even if it does, say this was to be a Premier League slam dunk, what is proven? That the league was illegitimate? That arguably the greatest club side many of us have seen was founded on deceit? When the time comes to negotiate the next TV deal, is that really such a triumph? Revenue is already dropping in real terms. The Premier League is having to offer more — additional matches, greater access — to maintain revenue streams. What will broadcasters pay if the past decade is then peppered with asterisks?

Talk to a lot of Premier League owners and they do not want past titles taken off City — they know that’s a terrible look. Serie A used to be Europe’s strongest domestic league. It had already lost ground on the Premier League when the Calciopoli scandal led to Juventus being stripped of the 2004-05 title, which then went unawarded. The 2005-06 title was given to Inter Milan, who came second, trailing Juventus by 15 points. And it can be argued justice was done, but the fallout made the league less marketable and, in time, weaker. Italy had boasted five European champions in the 21 years before Calciopoli and has had two since. The last was Inter in 2010.

There will be senior figures at elite Premier League clubs — Tim Lewis at Arsenal springs to mind, as would Daniel Levy had Tottenham Hotspur’s politics not defeated him first — who will be furious at the Premier League reaching a settlement over APT. Yet this is what light-touch regulation looks like: compromise, understanding.

Pep Guardiola and Khaldoon Al Mubarak with the Premier League trophy.

There will be no winners to the outcome of the Premier League’s 115 charges against City with the legal costs running into the millions.
Again, there are no real winners because so much time and money has now been wasted on legal rulings that appear to have been ended by old-fashioned conciliation. City recognise the validity and enforceable nature of the Premier League’s rules, the Premier League accepts that City’s deals with Etihad and other Gulf partners are fair and reasonable in today’s market, because some deals are bespoke.

Nobody needs to torch the rulebook, City can stop feeling persecuted, return to the table, sign their deal with Etihad and the competition can move on. City, you will notice, acknowledge the APT rules as binding, but have stopped short of referring to them as legal. They reserve the right, as no doubt do the Premier League if a commercial agreement crosses their desks with a few noughts where they shouldn’t be. And that’s common sense. That’s what should have happened in the first place, jaw-jaw always being preferred to war-war; and a damn sight cheaper too.

This is an entirely different case to the 115 charges, but the principle is not dissimilar. Costs on each side when the big one finally lands could be in the region of £100million. Was that really necessary? Was alleged non co-operation around historic events really such an issue that it required its own lengthy charge sheet? Could it not all have been boiled down to transgressions alleged to have directly impacted the integrity of the league? Premier League clubs could end up paying more than £5million each depending on the costs award. Would they have voted for that, or for the pursuit of Nottingham Forest, Leicester and Everton, had they known how expensive it would all be?

So can Manchester City now cash blank cheques on sponsorship? Of course not. Rules and parameters remain. City did not advocate for a league without rules. Equally, this idea that they, or Newcastle United, could buy every good player and dominate is flawed. But let’s say they could. Let’s say the new APT agreement gave them the clout to take Bukayo Saka out of Arsenal, retrieve Cole Palmer from Chelsea, prise Jude Bellingham from Real Madrid and put them together with Phil Foden. What would they have? They’d have the England forward line we know doesn’t work because we’ve seen it and the impact on paper is ten times what happens on the field.

Hell, we don’t even know if Liverpool will be able to blend Alexander Isak, Hugo Ekitike, Mohamed Salah and Florian Wirtz yet. We think it will work; it looks like it should work; but Wirtz hasn’t started well and Salah is yet to hit last season’s form, and the brightest spark is Ekitike, who may have to change position to accommodate Isak. And what if a regulatory compromise had given Newcastle the capacity to keep Isak from Liverpool? Would that have been such a bad thing; or would it have made for a better competition?

No doubt City’s elite rivals who place the Premier League under such pressure to rein them in will not appreciate what they see as capitulation. It is not. It is common sense. The best deal is always the one in which both sides feel they have surrendered a little. That’s not the same as losing. The problem with the 115 charges is we are already too far in. The damage is done, with no winners and not much hope of a draw. It’s a match lasting two years and nobody gets a point.
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Thank you . Martin Samuel I salute you .
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
I agree that City haven't set out to blatantly break the rules, and CAS proved that.

But the core of this is how do you define "fair"? As others have said, what's "fair" in a contract between two parties is up to those parties. When Qatar Airways sponsored the weather on Sky, their brand recognition increased significantly so whatever they paid Sky was probably "fair" to them, regardless of any comparison to any similar contract.

Sponsorships like Team Viewer's with united may have been in line with united's expectations but was wildly out of line with Team Viewer's revenue and net profits and they had to terminate it early due to shareholder pressure. Similarly with Chevrolet's sponsorship, which was done in excess of the budget allocated, and for which the exec who negotiated it was sacked. Maybe they were "fair value" to united but they clearly weren't to the sponsor. The PL or UEFA trying to decide what is "fair" on some fairly simplistic grounds simply isn't tenable.
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You can run such an argument. But it usually fails as it did for City in the APT case. And in the PL at least there is quite extensive detail now on how FMV is determined.
 
halfcenturyup said:
People are confusing the club "accepting" the validity of the November 2024 rules with them being found to be lawful. There has still been no determination of the legality of those rules. They are still open to challenge.

Imho, if we look at APT 1 and 2 together from the point of view of the club: the February 2024 rules, which added more onerous requirements, were thrown out and will not be repeated in any future rules; in a hugely embarrassing judgment for the PL, the rules from 2021 to October 2024 were declared null and void because of the exclusion of shareholder loans, which consequently had to be included in the new rules causing a number of clubs to change their financing structure; and the club has apparently achieved approval of the Etihad deal or, at least, negotiated amended terms which are acceptable to it.

If we look from the point of view of the PL, they have confirmation that APT rules, are, in principle, lawful, something City never challenged until the February 2024 changes; and they have November 2024 rules the legality of which hasn't been determined yet.

I know who I think has come out of it all in better shape, and it's not the PL by a long distance.
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FFS don`t let Coatigan read that. ;)
 
bobbyowenquiff said:
There has to be a link. Why would the PL smooth the way for a new Etihad deal when they have essentially accused us of faking our deal with the same sponsor for ten years in another case? If the PL claims were true Etihad officials would have colluded with City over who was paying for the sponsorship.
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Forgive my naivety but isn't it just a case that they'd have to pave the way for the deal to go through as for the moment we are only accused, so innocent legally speaking. In other words they'd have no lawful reason for rejecting the deal provided it was fair value etc etc. If (and I don't believe it will happen) we are found guilty of the serious charges the deal will then face appropriate penalties only at that point?

That could all be wrong btw, just asking the question as that's how I assumed it would work.
 
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