Nearly half of the teams in the Premier League wrote to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to request that Manchester City’s appeal against a ban from European competition be dismissed, according to a report released Tuesday.
Pep Guardiola’s team was hit with a two-year ban from European football and a multi-million Euro fine earlier this year from UEFA’s club financial control body (CFCB) for what they described as “serious breaches” of rules related to licensing and financial fair play.
The case stemmed from the so-called “Football Leaks”: troves of insider information and internal emails released to the public by German publication Der Spiegel, some of which appeared to incriminate Manchester City in having deliberately concealed investment into the club.
The ruling was successfully appealed in June, overturning the European suspension and vastly reducing the fine after a panel heard evidence over a three-day period.
Manchester City stated that they “welcomed” the development, but several high profile managers within the Premier League – including Jose Mourinho and Jurgen Klopp – were highly critical of the decision.
This objection stood for several months.
A 93-page report released on Tuesday by CAS in which they explain the reasoning for the commutation also details how a total of nine Premier League sides wrote to the court in March to express their opposition to Man City’s suspension being removed. These included the club’s two most-heated rivals, Manchester United and Liverpool.
The other teams to object were Arsenal, Burnley, Chelsea, Leicester, Newcastle, Tottenham, and Wolves.
Nine Premier League clubs opposed Manchester City appealing their initial UEFA ban. pic.twitter.com/uGWdGYOrDv
CAS confirm 9 clubs wrote to them in March asking them not to lift Man City’s European ban while City appealed. City never applied for the ban to be lifted. 9 clubs were Arsenal, Burnley, Chelsea, Leicester, Liverpool, Man Utd, Newcastle, Spurs and Wolves
The CAS panel says Uefa had a legitimate basis to prosecute Manchester City. Prosecution was not frivolous. It found that City failed to co-operate with Uefa’s investigation. City failed to provide witness statements or provide the original versions of the leaked emails
In the case of Manchester Utd, Chelsea, Leicester, Tottenham and Wolves, Manchester City’s expulsion from next season’s Champions League would have guaranteed the team who finished fifth in the league a place in next season’s Champions League. In the end, it was Leicester who missed out.
The document also states that Manchester City strongly denied that they had entered into a conspiracy with sponsors Etihad Airways and Etisalat to illegally funnel money into the club, with the panel finding that allegations that sponsorship income had been inflated had no merit.
However, the panel also found that the club failed to comply with UEFA in their initial investigation and also failed to supply witness statements or the original iterations of the leaked emails.
CAS therefore determined that Manchester City had committed a serious breach in failing to cooperate, leading to a fine of €10 million ($11.7 million) being upheld.
