- City found guilty of 114 out of 115 charges but have appealed
- Tebas says punishment is significant for Premier League and wider European ecosystem
- LaLiga president wants governance to be distributed across more bodies
LaLiga president Javier Tebas says Manchester City deserve to face “justice” after being found guilty of breaching Premier League financial rules and has demanded reform at Fifa and Uefa.
Manchester City were found guilty by an independent commission of 114 of the 115 charges levelled against the club for extensive breaches of its cost control rules.
The investigation determined that City worked to ‘artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs by more than UK£900 million’ between the 2009/10 and 2017/18 seasons, a period in which they won three of their eight Premier League titles. They were also found guilty of failing to cooperate during the investigation.
The club successfully appealed a ban from European competition handed down by Uefa in 2020 after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled some of the governing body’s allegations could not be punished because of the time elapsed. A €30 million fine was also reduced to €10 million.
However, the Premier League has no such statute of limitations and, should City’s appeal be unsuccessful, the punishment is likely to be much more severe, with points deductions, expulsion and huge financial penalties all among the possibilities.
Several English rivals have suggested they could take legal action against City, whose conduct would also have impacted European clubs – including LaLiga teams – it faced in Champions League competition.
Speaking at the Sportel sports business conference in Monaco, Tebas would not be drawn on specific sanctions but said he had a keen eye on the outcome. He hopes the punishments will be significant enough to act as deterrent to other clubs seeking to bend financial rules in the future.
“Of course, I am interested in Manchester City because in 2017 we participated in [the] Soccerex [conference] in Manchester and the [City] CEO [Ferran Soriano] called me because he was mad at me because I was telling people about all…they were doing,” said Tebas.
“I’m interested in understanding how this story will end. It is important for both the Premier League and the European football ecosystem. There are people who have had to leave Uefa because of Manchester City, so I think we need justice for the Premier League, for Europe and Uefa.”
It is unclear which officials Tebas was referring to, but Yves Leterme, the chief investigator of Uefa’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB), was singled out for criticism by City in their public statements on the matter. Leterme left Uefa in 2021 but there is no suggestion his departure was linked to City.
When asked by SportsPro whether City’s case highlighted the need for greater financial regulation in European soccer, Tebas noted that LaLiga’s strict spending rules meant its clubs had a fraction of the debts of their European counterparts.
“Of course, we hope the Premier League will understand to be more sensible … they have quite a complicated financial situation,” he said.
Despite his calls for justice on Uefa’s behalf, the typically combative Tebas did not spare European soccer’s governing body, arguing that the sport should be overseen by a wider array of administrative bodies.
Tebas has been a vocal critic of Fifa president Gianni Infantino and his style of management, not to mention his plans to sell a stake in the men’s World Cup.
“I would like to see changes in the governance of Fifa and Uefa and other institutions according to the [rulings] of the sports courts of law,” he elaborated. “We have monopolies and they must be transparent with any decision. This is not happening – not happening.
“We have certain rules and everyone must respect these rules.”
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