Man City APT ‘twist’ amid Premier League ‘U-turn’ as expert highlights new ‘interesting’ detail
Football finance expert Stefan Borson claims the Premier League are ‘ready’ to perform a ‘U-turn’ amid their conflict with Manchester City.
At the start of 2023, Man City were charged with breaching over 100 of the Premier League’s Financial Fair Play rules. This followed a four-year probe into their conduct between 2009 and 2018.
Pep Guardiola‘s side have insisted their innocence but if found guilty, they could be given a huge fine, points deduction, transfer ban, expulsion or be stripped of their Premier League titles.
This case has already dragged on longer than most would have liked and there is unlikely to be a conclusion until the start of next year.
Earlier this year, a further spanner was thrown into the works as Man City launched an unprecedented legal battle against the Premier League to campaign for the removal of Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules.
This hearing has already concluded and it’s understood that Man City and the Premier League had success and there wasn’t a clear winner.
Man City have at least forced the Premier League to change their APT rules and it remains to be seen how this will impact the separate FFP case, which remains ongoing.
Earlier this week, former Everton chairman Keith Wyness predicted when we will hear “something concrete” on Man City’s FFP case.
“We’re all watching every week, every day at the moment. There have been no leaks, I’ve certainly heard nothing in the football circles.
“I think it’s going to be into the new year before we hear something concrete on this case.
“We’ll have to buckle down and get through Christmas. Then we can expect to brighten up our January with some exciting news on an outcome.”
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Regarding the APT situation, former Man City financial advisor Stefan Borson has commented on a ‘shock twist’ with the Premier League prepared to perform a ‘U-turn’.
He has also revealed a new ‘interesting’ detail regarding this situation.
“It’s not a huge surprise in terms of the changes proposed,” Borson told Football Insider.
“What we know is there is going to be a vote on 22 November to consider effectively changes that will take us back to the original 2021 associated party rules.
“It will effectively unwind those changes that have been made in 2024 that the tribunal deemed to be unlawful.
“The interesting part of it is we don’t yet know if any additional questions were put to the tribunal in terms of whether the fix can be as proposed here by the Premier League.
“What we have got here from the Premier League is pretty much what they were going to do in their original press release, which is ‘We the Premier League think that all we need to do is make some pretty simple changes to the rules that delete certain words, that add back certain words that were deleted in February and we all go on like nothing has happened. We add in this whole point about shareholder loans and that deals with the tribunal’s decision’.
“What we don’t know is whether City are in agreement with this because, if you remember, on the eve of the public announcement that was made by the Premier League about the decision, City wrote to all the Premier League clubs and said ‘Hang on a minute, we don’t agree that is a suitable fix for what’s been decided by the tribunal and, as a minimum, we expect additional questions to be put back to the tribunal’.
“We don’t know whether the tribunal has been asked any additional questions, whether the clubs and the Premier League have made submissions to the tribunal either in writing or in person and we don’t know if the tribunal has made any decision.”