Manchester City
Premier League • England
True cost of Man City FFP case revealed as £200m claim labelled ‘completely ridiculous’
Manchester City and the Premier League have NOT spent £200million on their Financial Fair Play (FFP) legal battle, despite a report claiming that to be the case, as per a former financial adviser to Pep Guardiola’s side.
The Premier League conducted a four-year investigation into the finances of Man City before charging them in February 2023. The Premier League initially claimed that City had broken their financial rules on 115 occasions, before increasing the charges to 130.
The alleged rule-breaking occurred between 2009 and 2018. The Premier League believe City gave false accounts of their financial standing, such as how much money was being paid to managers and how much money came in via sponsorship revenue.
City strongly deny any wrongdoing and have always insisted that ‘irrefutable evidence’ will help them win the legal challenge.
City were referred to an independent commission, and the hearing took place between September and December last year.
However, the verdict has been delayed repeatedly. After initially being tipped for March, it is now not expected to arrive until October at the earliest.
The Times claimed last week that Premier League officials are worried about the rising cost of the case, with the two parties having allegedly spent £200m combined.
But Stefan Borson, who previously worked for City, has disputed this. In an interview with Football Insider, he said: “Well, it won’t be £200m.
“That’s completely ridiculous, but it is significant. There are big question marks over the overall legal spend at the Premier League.
“I did a piece analysing the last few years of their operating expenses, which include the legal costs, and they’re very significant.
“They have grown aggressively over the last few years, so I think it is true that there’s been big legal spend since kind of two or three years ago. I think sort of before Covid, it was fairly modest, and it seems to have gone crazy in the period after.
“But then again, the organisation is growing. They are doing more things in house. On top of that, they have got all of these cases.
“There’s no way the City case is £200m, but obviously it will be very significant. I would think the total costs would be something like maybe £20-25m on each side. I don’t think there’ll be a big discrepancy.
“What we’ve seen previously is the Premier League have been outspending the clubs by a lot, so their fees have been much bigger than the clubs.
“They have struggled to recover those fees from Everton and Nottingham Forest, even though they obviously won the cases.
“What’s happened is when they’ve gone to the independent commissions to try and reclaim their costs, the independent commissions have effectively said you’re spending too much, you’re over complicating these cases, and you need to not necessarily use cheaper lawyers but we’re not asking Everton and Nottingham Forest to pay for your very expensive lawyers.”
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Man City ‘confident’ they’ll fight off charges
Borson said recently that City are ‘confident’ they will win the case, as they have been telling players and agents not to worry about potential punishments.
Borson also cooled speculation about top stars such as Erling Haaland and Rodri having relegation release clauses in their contracts.
As per The Independent, we could learn the verdict during October’s international break, which runs from the 4-18.
Premier League CEO Richard Masters was asked about the case during the Summer Series in the United States, but he said he could not comment until the verdict is released.
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