Manchester City have a hearing on Monday in which they’ll attempt to challenge rules that limit how much companies linked to club owners can spend on sponsorship deals.
The Premier League recently introduced limits on ‘associated party transactions’, but City want to get rid of the rules and claim damages.
City claim clubs with owners from the Middle East are being discriminated against, and they’ve received support from other clubs with a personal interest in helping themselves by removing the spending limits – Chelsea, Aston Villa, and Newcastle United.
Yet the Daily Mail claim many more clubs have provided support to the Premier League on the other side of the argument, including Manchester United, Arsenal, Fulham, Wolves, Brighton, and Tottenham Hotspurs.
Between 10 and 12 of the 20 Premier League clubs have provided witness statements or letters to support the current regulations.
The two-week hearing will begin on Monday, and it’s been suggested that City are bringing this case in part as an attempt to lay the groundwork for their defence against 115 charges of breaking Premier League spending rules.
The hearing on those 115 charges will be heard in November, and though the two cases are technically unrelated, The Athletic suggest that City’s defence would be strengthened if APT laws are found to be unlawful.
For anyone unaware of the details, the BBC recently did a roundup of all the charges against Manchester City:
- 54 charges of failure to provide accurate financial information from 2009-10 to 2017-18
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14 charges of failure to provide accurate details for player and manager payments from 2009-10 to 2017-18.
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5 charges of failure to comply with Uefa’s rules including Financial Fair Play (FFP) from 2013-14 to 2017-18.
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7 charges of breaching Premier League’s PSR rules from 2015-16 to 2017-18.
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35 charges of failure to co-operate with Premier League investigations from December 2018 to Feb 2023.