The head of the Independent Football Regulator (IFR) in England said there is an expectation that the Manchester City situation will be “resolved” before the end of this season.
City have appealed the guilty verdict returned by an independent commission that follows a multi-year investigation by the Premier League that resulted in 115 charges of financial breaches. The club was deemed guilty of almost all of the charges relating to nine years between 2009 and 2018, with findings shared in a damning report last month.
There is a timeline in place for the appeal to be heard and a verdict reached. David Kogan, IFR chief, told Times Radio: “My understanding is there is a prescribed process, which is 12 weeks, and so people are assuming this will actually be heard by the middle or the end of January.”
“It’s not [the IFR’s] process, it’s that of the Premier League’s independent commission. What I don’t think we can do is take any judgment until we’re quite clear.
“Obviously, City claim that they have some form of silver bullet to put off these charges and win the appeal, and we’re not there to judge whether that’s right or wrong yet, but I think we’ll know in the early part of next year.”
In theory, City could continue to appeal should this first one be unsuccessful in having the original verdict overturned, escalating the matter up the chain. But there has to be a legal reason for that, and the grounds for appeal narrow each time.
Based on the club’s vehement denial of any wrongdoing throughout this process, it feels unlikely that a failed appeal, paving the way for sanctions, would be willfully accepted.
Independent Football Regulator Has Power to Expel Man City’s Owner
Separate to any sanctions from the independent commission, should the guilty verdict stand, the IFR has the power to end Sheikh Mansour’s stewardship of Manchester City.
That course of action, as Kogan said in an IFR statement on Sept. 30, would be taken if his ownership was no longer deemed “suitable” in the interests of “protecting the sustainability, honesty and integrity” of English soccer, and where there is “clear evidence of wrongdoing by individuals.”
Concerns About Government Interference Dismissed
The relationship between the Manchester City ownership and U.K. prime minister Andy Burnham and the potential for it to affect this process has been called into question of late.
There are underlying concerns about the risk of soured relations between the United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates, with Sheikh Mansour a senior politician and member of the royal family in the Gulf nation. Burnham, formerly the Mayor of Greater Manchester, has been careful with his words around the guilty verdict and is still full of praise for the wider economic impact UAE investment has had in that particular pocket of east Manchester.
At the end of September, Burnham said he would be “really concerned to lose them,” referring to the possibility of the ownership being deemed unsuitable.
“They’ve been such a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester and obviously the building of Manchester City into the global force that it is,” the prime minister told BBC.
“I do actually thank the City Football Group and the wider ownership for the money that they didn’t just put into the Etihad [Stadium] and the campus around it but also into the city.”
Burnham’s “concern” could theoretically equate to pressure from the government, but Kogan and the IFR appear confident that it is not an issue and will not become one.
“The prime minister’s capable of saying whatever he wants to say,” Kogan continued in his Times Radio interview. “You asked me whether we have had any interference politically in any of the judgments we’re making, and I’m telling you, categorically, we have not.
“We will take a judgment based on evidence. Once the appeal has been heard by the independent commission of the Premier League, we’re going to look at that evidence closely, we’re going to actually have powers of investigation ourselves, and that will be what governs what we [the IFR] do.”
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