The Premier League (PL) and Manchester City finally face each other. Since Monday, three judges from the Dispute Resolution Centre, the arbitration court located in the heart of the city, have decided to face each other. City from London (the financial and legal centre of the city) will hear the parties, in what the media has already dubbed “the trial of the century”.
The hearings, held behind closed doors, will last at least ten weeks. The verdict will not be known until next year, and can be appealed by both sides. The sports club is fighting tooth and nail against accusations that could even lead to its expulsion from the English league. The Premier League is determined to go all the way to ensure its authority remains intact in a near-death duel against a powerful, admired and beloved team.
Both sides have turned to the brightest legal minds in the UK, whatever the cost, to emerge victorious.
The PL has sued the club, as made public in February last year, for alleged breach of league funding rules for nine consecutive seasons (2009/10 to 2017/18). The sum of the alleged grievances exceeds one hundred, and could constitute, if the investigation ends in a conviction, the biggest breach of rules by a club throughout the history of the English competition. The final sanction could range from expulsion from the league to suspension or points deduction.
City manager Pep Guardiola has always been cautious when commenting on the legal battle. “That’s how justice works in a democratic country. Let’s wait for the verdict and that’s it. It’s not that complicated,” he said a few days ago, in response to a comment by Javier Tebas, president of La Liga, who claimed that many Premier League clubs wanted City to be punished.
On Tuesday, in the press conference prior to the club’s Champions League opener against Inter Milan (Wednesday, 9:00 p.m. CET), Guardiola gave a clue, when explaining how he is facing the season, about his attitude to the uncertainty of the trial: “I don’t think about the future. In modern football you are forced to deal with the present. That’s all,” he said.
It’s been almost 16 months since City beat the Italian club in Istanbul to win their first Champions League. “They were a great team then and they are still great now, with the same coach. They were the best last year in a tough and competitive league like the Italian one,” Guardiola said.
The accusations against City
Premier League officials have also accused Manchester City of failing to provide accurate information about their manager’s pay and contract between the 2009/10 and 2012/13 seasons. During that time, the club was managed by Roberto Mancini. Pep Guardiola joined in 2016. Regarding the six seasons from 2010/11 to 2015/16, the allegations against City’s management focus on player pay and contracts. Finally, regarding the period between 2013/14 and 2017/18, the Premier League has alleged breaches by the club of regulations regarding Financial Fair Play (Financial Fair Play) rules imposed by UEFA. Manchester City has been part of the Abu Dhabi United Group since 2008. Since then, the value of its squad has exceeded 1.1 billion euros.
The best legal minds
David Pannick has been involved in some of the most high-profile legal battles in the UK in recent years. He has fought Boris Johnson over the excesses of Brexit, and defended him over his own excesses, over the parties banned in Downing Street during lockdown. He has represented Shamima Begum, the young British woman who joined the Islamic State terrorist organisation, in her attempt to return to the UK. And he leads a group of lawyers from different law firms in the defence of Manchester City.
Adam Lewis is considered the “godfather” of Sports Law in the United Kingdom. His book Sport: Law and Practice (Sport: Laws and their Practice) is the Bible that many legal professionals have turned to in order to navigate a field where legal doctrine was scarce until recently.
Pannick is a master at telling and presenting complex issues in a simple manner before a court. Lewis, affable in his personal manner, is a killeron the bench, which once put Everton in a difficult position in its litigation against the Premier League, after being accused of having exceeded the legal spending limit.
Pannick is an expert in financial law. Lewis masters the power game between clubs, federations and leagues. The “trial of the century”, which combines accusations of alleged fraud and concealment of accounts with a crucial political pulse around power and the way in which some clubs finance their sporting muscle, offers ground for the two lawyers to shine.
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