Man City trial: what are the 115 Premier League charges?

Times

14 hours ago

The Premier League investigation that led to 130 charges — it was originally thought there were 115 separate alleged breaches, but there are in fact 15 more — being brought against Manchester City for alleged breaches of its financial rules obtained evidence that was not available to Uefa in its case against the club, or that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled inadmissible due to it being time-barred. Almost a year after the hearing started, no verdict has been forthcoming. Here are some of the issues surrounding the case.
The Premier League's charges against City include ten of breaching rules 'requiring a member club to include full details of player remuneration in its relevant contracts with its players' over the seasons 2010-11 to 2015-16 inclusive. For each season, two rule breaches are alleged but it has not been confirmed which player or players they relate to.
One of those rules says: 'Particulars of any image contract payment in respect of the players shall be set out in the contract with his club.' The other states: 'Full details of a player's remuneration including all benefits to which he is entitled whether in cash or in kind shall be set out in his contract.'
In April 2022, eight months after the CAS overturned Uefa's two-year ban, the German publication Der Spiegel published another tranche of emails and documents which raised questions over image rights payments.
They included copies of two contracts between an offshore company, DS Management Ltd — owned by Dimitri Seluk, then the agent of the former City midfielder Yaya Touré — and the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) which owns City, in relation to image rights. The contracts set out payment schedules of first €4million (£3.45million) and then another £4million due over several years. The Der Spiegel leak also included an invoice asking for the payments to be made to DS Management's Swiss bank account.
Sources with knowledge of usual practices have told The Times that if the payments were to cover Touré's image rights, then it should have been City making the payment and not ADUG.
In February 2023 Seluk, who no longer works for Touré, told The Guardian there had not been any secret payments to him, adding: 'No, everything was transparent, there was nothing on the back side. I am interested to see what happens as this was a surprise. Yaya paid everything — tax and everything. It was all transparent.'
The Premier League charges include eight alleged rule breaches relating to 'full details of manager remuneration in its relevant contracts with its manager' from 2009-10 to 2012-13, when Roberto Mancini was manager of the club.
In 2022 Der Spiegel published contracts relating to the employment of the Italian. They showed that his first contract with City was for a base salary of £1.45million — net of tax — but his company in Italy was also paid £1.75million annually for him to work as a consultant for the Abu Dhabi-based club Al-Jazira, for which he had to commit to coaching at the club for four days a year.
Emails released by Der Spiegel appear to show his company Italy International Services (IIS) issued quarterly invoices to City, who sent the money to the ADUG, which then passed it on to Al-Jazira to pay it. The leaked documents show the deal with Al-Jazira was witnessed by Simon Pearce, a City director and an adviser to the Abu Dhabi ruling family.
Mancini has previously declined to comment when asked about the Al-Jazira contract.
There are two main deals involved, one with the UAE telecoms company, Etisalat, and another with the airline, Etihad.
Uefa's adjudicatory committee concluded 'it was comfortably satisfied' that Etisalat had been paying £1.5million, which rose to £16.5million, with two payments of £15million in 2012 and 2013 coming as equity funding from ADUG. City insisted that Etisalat repaid ADUG in 2015 but that was not accepted by the committee. However, these charges were ruled as time-barred by the CAS.
In relation to the Etihad case, Uefa's adjudicatory committee concluded that the airline paid only £8million towards sponsorship deals worth £35million, £65million, and £67.5million in the 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2015-16 seasons, with the rest coming from ADUG. The majority of the CAS panel decided there was insufficient evidence for the charges to be proven.
Critics of Uefa's role in the case have questioned several aspects including:
Uefa said that it 'was satisfied with the way the procedure was conducted', adding 'it was imperative to move quickly as Uefa routinely makes every effort to ensure that CAS proceedings related to exclusion are expedited to receive final decisions within the time available. This also aligned with the wishes of the nine Premier League clubs which applied to intervene in the proceedings and were keen that a CAS decision was taken before the start of the 2020-21 season.'
Uefa said in a statement that it 'sought a legal opinion regarding a potential appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal. That opinion indicated that the chances of obtaining a 'request for revision' was low and that even in the remote chance that it was granted, Uefa would have limited chances of the appeal itself being successful'.
Uefa said: 'Given the CAS decision replaces the CFCB decision of February 2020, it rendered the publication of the CFCB decision moot and it has not been published on the Uefa website, in line with Uefa's consistent publication policy for decisions overturned by CAS. That said, the CAS decision does set out in detail the reasoning of the CFCB decision.'
In July 2022, after Der Spiegel had released more emails following the CAS decision, the club said in a statement: 'The questions and matters raised by Der Spiegel appear to be a cynical attempt to publicly re-litigate and undermine a case that has been fully adjudicated, after detailed proceedings and due process, by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
'Manchester City's policy remains not to comment on out of context materials purported to have been criminally obtained from City Football Group and Manchester City personnel.'
In February last year, after the announcement of the Premier League's 115 charges, City said in a statement: '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. As such we look forward to this matter being put to rest once and for all.'
City have previously stated that 'the attempt to damage the club's reputation is organised and clear'.
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