Manchester City's Champions League ban lifted: Details here
Manchester City's two-year ban from the Champions League has been overturned on appeal by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). This comes as a big relief to the Premier League club, which is still looking to win its first Champions League title. In February, City were handed a suspension by UEFA's Club Financial Control Body for "serious breaches" of financial fair play regulations.
"Whilst Manchester City and its legal advisers are yet to review the full ruling by the CAS, the club welcomes the implications of today's ruling as a validation of club's position and the body of evidence that it was able to present," the statement read.
Manchester City were banned from the Champions League as they were found to be in breach of Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules. The body alleged that City had overstated sponsorship revenue in their accounts and the break-even information submitted to the UEFA between 2012 and 2016. The findings also noted that City "failed to cooperate in the investigation".
According to some leaked emails, Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour funded the majority of club's €75 mn annual sponsorship by Etihad. Another leaked document suggested that Etihad had only funded €8.9 mn of that sponsorship in 2015-16, while the rest of finances were supplied by Abu Dhabi United Group (Mansour's own company). It was alleged that City deceived UEFA about meeting certain FFP rules.
UEFA uphold the FFP rules in order to discourage clubs from exploiting their financial superiority. The guidelines state that the clubs must spend in equal proportion of earnings. The rules were introduced to prevent clubs from overspending in areas like player wages and transfers.
The UEFA could potentially appeal the CAS ruling at the Swiss Federal Tribunal. However, sports lawyer Daniel Geey believes the decision is unlikely to be overturned. "It does happen, but the grounds to be able to appeal those decisions are pretty narrow, usually based on procedural fairness, jurisdiction or public policy grounds," he told Sky Sports News.
In response, City earlier claimed they had not received a fair hearing and took an appeal to the CAS. As a result, CAS has reduced City's initial €30 mn fine to €10 mn after finding "most of alleged breaches reported were either not established or time-barred". Notably, in their last Champions League tie, City had defeated Real Madrid in the first leg of round-of-16.
Manchester City could face Juventus or Lyon in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League 2019-20 season. As per the provisional dates, the remaining last-16 fixtures will be held on August 7-8, while the quarter-finals will take place from August 12-15. Besides, the semi-final ties are scheduled to be held on August 18-19. (quarter-final 1 vs 3 winners, quarter-final 2 vs 4 winners).
