UEFA investigators demand ban on City League Champions League

An investigation into accusations that Premier League champion Manchester City would have misled the financial regulators of European football in the pursuit of its success on the field should recommend that the team be excluded from the Champions League, of the richest competition in European football and the most coveted trophy.

The English football authorities and officials of UEFA, the governing body of European football and organizer of the Champions League, have been investigating for several months Manchester City, during allegations of violation of the rules revealed by leaks harmful to last year. The members of the investigative chamber of the UEFA Financial Control Commission, a group charged with badyzing the accounts of clubs suspected of violating stringent cost control rules, met two weeks ago in Nyon, Switzerland, to finalize their conclusions.

The head of the investigation group, former Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme, will have the last word on the submission to a separate chamber of judgment, which could be filed this week. The body should ask for at least one ban of a season.

Even the suggestion of a ban would be a heavy rebuke for Manchester City and its Gulf owners, who on Sunday won a fourth Premier League title in eight seasons. They have long sought to add the Champions League – the club's first prize – to the National Club Trophy, and any effort to exclude the team may trigger a monumental legal battle.

The current Manchester City team, incorporated and funded at a cost of more than $ 1 billion, is just the latest example of the financial power of the club's owner, Sheik Mansour bin. Zayed al-Nahyan, brother of the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, wears to wear. Sheik Mansour has invested billions of dollars over the past two decades – in the players, coaches, facilities and operations of the team – to transform Manchester City, who was already playing in the second tier of England in 2002 , one of the most important and most successful brands of football.

It remains to be seen whether a ban on the Champions League, if imposed, would be applied next season or in the 2020-2021 campaign. The qualifying matches for next season's tournament start in June, which means that UEFA must face a race against the clock to give the sanction to City who would have the right to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport .

Manchester City has vigorously denied the wrongdoing and its officials warned UEFA that they would react aggressively to any effort to exclude the club from the competition. "The accusations of financial irregularities are entirely false," City said in a statement earlier this year. "The accounts published by the club are complete and complete and fall under the criminal and regulatory record."

If UEFA is not in a position to litigate and impose a sanction, it risks seeing its system of financial rules put in place – since 2011 – and designed to impose a measure of Financial equity within the European football economy – drain of its meaning. Several heads of financial control agencies also said privately that their reputation could be damaged if their work was considered powerless.

A large number of allegations of financial irregularities and breaches of the rules made against Manchester City were revealed after being reported by media outlets having access to the so-called "Football Leaks" files. The files would include emails and internal documents to clubs showing City's efforts to circumvent UEFA's financial fair play rules by hiding the cash from an investment company backed by the State of the United Arab Emirates through exaggerated sponsorship agreements with entities such as the United Arab Emirates National Airline, Etihad. . Etihad is the main sponsor of the city. His name adorns the team's stadium, its signage during matches and even in front of players' jerseys.

The city has not labeled any information reported to date as false. Instead, he dismissed the information as a "clear and organized attempt" to tarnish the club's reputation by publishing documents that were illegally obtained. In January, the European authorities accused a Portuguese citizen of being the computer hacker of Football Leaks, a clandestine operation revealing some of the most secret secrets of the football industry.

UEFA's financial rules, implemented for the first time in 2011, were designed to prevent clubs from compromising their financial future by spending too much on talent. At the time, dozens of teams were in debt for tens of millions of dollars, in part because of the rapidly rising cost of the best players, fueled by the lavish spending of some super-rich homeowners.

The rules permit the sponsorship of club-related companies that attempt to balance their accounts, provided that the agreements are concluded at prices reflecting market rates.

Etihad signed up as Manchester City's main sponsor a year after the takeover of Sheikh Mansur, wearing the club's jersey, stadium and an affiliate campus built by City. An internal email published last year by the German weekly Der Spiegel last year indicated that the airline had only funded £ 8 million (9.2 million euros). 39; euros) of the agreement of 59.5 million pounds sterling (68.4 million euros), the rest coming from ADUG, the investment vehicle Mansour. buy City. Speigel's reports also described a number of arrangements allowing the club to avoid UEFA's financial regulations.

According to those familiar with the investigation, City's punishment will most likely be linked to a charge that it allegedly provided misleading statements in resolving a previous case, as well as misrepresentations to the licensing authorities. England, and not on the real value of the document. sponsorship agreements. This made the case a curious case for those responsible for financial control, who were given the job in place of the main disciplinary body of UEFA.

In 2014, the city accepted a settlement agreement with Uefa related to a previous breach of the spending rules. As a sanction, he agreed to pay a conditional fine of 49 million pounds sterling (56.3 million euros) and to accept restrictions on incoming transfers.

As part of their ongoing investigation, UEFA investigators, an independent group of specialists in governance and finance led by Leterme, met with city officials in April, Switzerland. The investigators were not convinced by the club's explanations, according to a person familiar with these discussions.

Their decision to press for Manchester City punishment could have serious consequences for Uefa, who would essentially blame a team backed by the UAE royal family for cheating and lying to many stakeholders, including the Premier League, while She was building herself into a champion.

The outcome of the case will be closely monitored in the light of growing concern over the credibility of UEFA's financial fair play regulation on sanctioning the most important clubs. Paris Saint-Germain, the French club that also belongs to the Gulf royalty, in its case, the governing family of Qatar, managed to avoid a major punishment recently facing the same issues regarding its sponsorship agreements and its ability to respect the financial conditions. control mechanisms, when he bought the two most expensive players in the world – the attackers Neymar and Kylian Mbappé – in a single summer transfer window.

PSG and UEFA have an entangled relationship. The owners of the team also run beIN Sports, the broadcaster who is the biggest media rights buyer in UEFA. The club and beIN Sports are both led by Nbader al-Khelaifi, a Qatari national who was elected to the UEFA board of directors earlier this year. – NYT