The biggest case in Premier League history. One of the biggest in sport, ever. A “seismic” event in English football.
These are some of the ways legal experts have described the hearing into the Premier League’s 115 charges against Manchester City.
It is set to begin on Monday, having previously been kept a secret, like almost every aspect of the Premier League’s six-year pursuit of a club that became the first to win four consecutive top-flight titles in the summer.
Two of the country’s leading lawyers, Adam Lewis KC representing the Premier League and Lord David Pannick Manchester City, will try to convince an independent panel, made up of legal experts, that either City presided over almost a decade of financial deception to build the most successful football team in the world, or they are innocent of all allegations.
What might the outcomes of such an unprecedented hearing look like? A host of lawyers and legal experts have shared with i their understanding of the case and its possible ramifications.
To recap: at its essence, the Premier League alleges that Manchester City overstated the fees they received for sponsorship agreements with companies, such as Etihad, linked to Sheikh Mansour, the club’s owner.
The League also claims payments to Roberto Mancini, the former manager, and players were not fully disclosed. The lesser charges are that City failed to cooperate with the investigation into these claims.
It will be, sports lawyers say, more akin to a financial fraud trial than a traditional sporting arbitration.
“Given the stakes, it will be fought like a civil fraud case in the High Court,” Stefan Borson, a corporate lawyer and former financial advisor to Manchester City, tells i.
It will not, however, be held in a grand courtroom, with wigs and a judge hammering a gavel for attention, like a scene out of A Time To Kill.
One lawyer with experience of football hearings says these proceedings take place in a neutral venue – possibly a hotel – in the slightly less formal attire of suits and ties.
Significantly, whereas civil trials are held in public courts, this will be behind-closed-doors, shrouded in more confidentiality than state secrets.
The hearing is expected to last around 10 to 12 weeks, but lawyers do not believe it will be resolved this season. One prominent sports lawyer believes the costs will run into tens of millions of pounds.
The only glimpse behind the curtain the public, fans, rival executives and owners will get is when the written reasons are published. For a case of this nature, it will be hundreds of pages long. There was a 60-page document for one charge against Everton.
The document alone will take months to write.
“The sheer volume of evidence that’s got to be considered is mind-boggling,” says a one sports lawyer, who asked to remain anonymous.
“It’s 115 different charges. Which is why you have some of the world’s largest law firms involved. They’ll have an army of lawyers working on this one case. I dread to think the cost to both parties in engaging those lawyers. It’s going to be a huge bill at the end of the day.”
The outcome will be significant. Richard Masters, the Premier League chief executive, has, understandably, refused to answer questions about the process.
But when asked if he had thought about what lay in the future, during a briefing with reporters recently, he said, “Of course we contemplate at its conclusion what might happen, and we think about that a lot and that’s about as far as I’m prepared to go.”
Outcome 1: The Premier League win
If the Premier League “win’” – for example, if the independent panel sides with them on the majority of charges – no legal experts can see past Manchester City being kicked out of the Premier League.
City have always maintained their innocence, it should be noted, commenting that they were “surprised” when the charges were issued in February 2023, and that the club “welcomes the review of this matter by an independent commission, to impartially consider the comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of its position”.
The club was “look[ing] forward to this matter being put to rest once and for all”, a statement said.
But there are a significant number of charges – Borson claims there are actually 129 charges, not the 115 number that has stuck in the public lexicon. Many are of a serious nature.
If the panel sides with the Premier League’s argument that Manchester City inflated the value of sponsorship agreements, it will not only be a proven act of deception but will have skewed the club’s financial fair play calculations.
The Premier League will likely argue that the strong punishments against Everton and Nottingham Forest for breaching spending limits in recent seasons have set a precedent. Both were docked points for single breaches.
“If you’re the Premier League you’re wanting to bring in those decided cases and say these cases have set a certain precedent,” says one legal expert.
“Whether that’s followed is a case for legal argument. If the cases are so different, you can’t follow. Precedent can be followed in terms of legal principle, but each case must be decided on facts. Although the whole legal system is based on precedent it can be departed from if the facts are different.”
Expulsion from the Premier League would place City at the mercy of the next league that will take them in. One theory is that, if the EFL has any sense it will allow them to enter League Two to guarantee at least three seasons of City’s climb back up.
Allow them back into the Championship and in all likelihood, they go straight back up.
But Borson says: “I think it’s going to be difficult to prove a case like this. The Independent Commission’s starting point will likely be that it’s improbable for the individuals involved with City and the third parties to have conspired as alleged. However, if the main allegations are proven, the punishment will be severe.”
Outcome 2: Manchester City win
Lawyers claim it will be disastrous for the Premier League to lose.
Essentially, they argue, if you’re going to go around making allegations of this nature against any of your clubs – let alone one of the biggest – you better make them stick.
The usual practise is that, where possible, these types of disputes are settled in private, with little attention. Not going to court (as it were), and certainly not, where conceivably possible, in a three-month hearing.
If this sounds like unfair practice, then consider that there is a history of clubs being offered amnesties for admitting to widespread rule-breaking in the past. Usually, wrists are slapped and everyone moves on.
Here, the Premier League have pursued the case fervently, launching an investigation in December 2018 that lasted almost five years then revealing the extent of the charges in its public announcements.
“The stakes are high for the Premier League too,” Borson believes. A City win would be “a significant issue” for the Premier League.
“I think that will have consequences within the Premier League,” he adds. “It will be seen as a failure of realpolitik in not settling the matter commercially behind closed doors, either before launching the charges or afterwards.”
Equally, another lawyer, who works for a major sports law firm and asked not to be named, described a complete City exoneration as “unlikely”.
Outcome 3: Somewhere in-between
There remains the prospect of a sort of in-between outcome. Say, for example, it is proven that City were uncooperative in the investigation, but not guilty of the financial impropriety.
In this case City will, it is predicted, take a likely hefty fine on the chin and not appeal.
This is similar to what happened at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, when Uefa, European football’s governing body, brought a similar case.
A Uefa hearing initially found City to have inflated sponsorship deals and handed them a two-year Champions League ban and €30m fine.
But in 2020 City appealed to CAS, who overturned the ban and reduced the fine, concluding the club had been uncooperative with the investigation but the sponsorship allegations were either not proven or time barred.
“Time barring” has been a particular point of contention. The Uefa rules state that any breaches had to be challenged within a certain amount of time. And some claim City got off on a technicality.
No such specific rules exist in the Premier League’s rulebook, but that does not mean time barring is irrelevant here. The Premier League follows the laws of England and Wales, which do have a Statute of Limitations… and this is what will be up for legal debate during the hearing.
“In normal circumstances, subject to the usual carve outs in Statute of Limitations arguments, there is a six-year English law time limit to bringing such claims,” Borson explains.
“In the case of proven fraud or concealment, the Statute of Limitations would not apply. But it’s not straightforward for a claimant to successfully prove that Limitation – i.e. a time bar – should not apply. It regularly comes up in cases.
“It’s worth noting that it is the Premier League’s ability to bring the claim and not the evidence itself that could be time barred.”
He adds, “Given the age of some of the underlying allegations, I would think that it will be part of the tapestry of the hearing. The issue City will have, particularly in relation to the sponsorship allegations, is that it’s a difficult argument to win because if the underlying allegation is proven, it would appear that it had been concealed and therefore not time barred.
“City might have more success in respect of the Mancini allegations. Absent the allegation of concealment or fraud, the Mancini allegations do look like they would be time barred. In any event, looking at the 2009-2013 rules, it is not clear that the alleged agreements were prohibited.”
No matter the outcome… an appeal?
“I think whatever the outcome it will be appealed,” another lawyer at a leading firm, who asked to remain anonymous, said.
“I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t one. I can’t see a world where the panel comes to a decision that’s accepted by both parties, considering the amount that’s been invested.”
What would then happen, the lawyer explained, is similar to the first process, but with narrower grounds. Everton and Nottingham Forest showed there is an appetite for clubs to appeal rulings.
Rather than the case being heard again, the appellant essentially looks for mistakes and misinterpretations in the written judgement, based on facts and legal decisions.
“The parties will try to unpick the decision and find mistakes, errors of law, gaps, misunderstandings, and contradictions,” Borson explains.
“That’s what Everton did when they appealed the PSR breach. They engaged one of the leading commercial silks around, Laurence Rabinowitz KC, just for the appeal, and got him to attack every aspect of the initial decision for five days – and with some success.”
But any chance of an appeal being resolved before the end of the season is minimal.
Meanwhile, there’s also the prospect of taking it further. While the Premier League rules block an appeal to CAS, the Premier League rulebook can’t block an appeal of the outcome to the High Court, under the Arbitration Act, one lawyer claims.
Manchester City have already shown an appetite for this. When City resisted handing over documents relating to the investigation and were compelled to do so by an arbitration panel, they appealed to the High Court in 2021.
The decision by Judge Moulder to make the facts of the case public gave the slimmest of glimpses behind the curtain of secrecy both parties have tried to hold firmly in place.
Legal documents reveal City’s lawyers argued the club should not have to hand over documents and challenged the fairness of the case being heard by a panel of professionals selected by the Premier League. But their arguments were dismissed.
When the judge said the basic facts of the ruling would be published, City appealed the decision, to try to block it – and were backed by the Premier League. It was, again, dismissed.
“There’s history of these two sides going beyond private arbitration and being heard in front of a public court like the High Court,” a lawyer says.
A case that has been going on for almost six years could have some distance to run yet.
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