Man City FFP: Percentage of lawyers who think City will win appeal revealed

· Football365

A football finance expert has revealed the percentage of lawyers he’s spoken to who believe Manchester City will win their appeal.

A football finance expert has revealed the percentage of lawyers he’s spoken to who believe Manchester City will win their appeal after being found guilty of breaching 114 Premier League rules.

An independent commission handed down the verdict in September; the panel found them to have used ‘sham’ sponsorship deals to boost they earnings by around £900m between 2009 and 2018.

The club have now appealed that verdict as they insist upon their innocence and claim they have ‘irrefutable evidence’ to prove it, in the form of documents showing that the sponsorship funds came from the Abu Dhabi government rather from their owners.

The Financial Times reported on Friday that the appeal is ‘set to go ahead in mid-December, according to people with knowledge of the situation’ and will ‘run for a number of days’.

Possible punishments if the appeal fails include fines, transfer bans, points deductions, Premier League expulsion and titles being stripped, while the owners could also be removed by the Independent Football Regulator.

It’s claimed the appeal verdict is set to be handed down by the newly-former independent commission ‘in the new year’, while ‘according to the people’, a decision on sanctions will follow that.

The report adds that ‘the timing of proceedings has been closely guarded, with some previously suggesting sanctions could be announced before the appeal process had concluded’.

Although City will be hit with the sanctions in the new year ‘it isn’t clear when any sanctions would take effect, and punishments are also open to appeal’.

The FT report added:

> ‘That means the uncertainty hanging over the Premier League — the most popular domestic competition in global football — could still stretch on beyond the current season ending in May, and possibly for years to come, legal experts have warned.’

For now we wait to hear if City will win their first appeal and journalist Nick Harris – a football finance expert who’s been a prominent voice reporting on the legal battle with the Premier League – has revealed what lawyers have told him about their chance of successfully appealing the guilty verdict

He wrote on X: > ‘From multiple lawyers I’ve spoken to, perhaps 25% think City will win appeal or parts of appeal but fewer think City will win substantive points. ie: will still lose. > > ‘Context: on the morning of the 2016 US presidential election, Trump had 26-28% chance of winning (max). But he won.’

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