Hearing into Manchester City's alleged FFP breaches to start in September, verdict expected in early 2025: Reports
According to The Times, the hearing for Manchester City's alleged 115 breaches of the Premier League's financial rules will start in September 2024 and the verdict is expected to be delivered in early 2025. The alleged breaches cover a period of nine Premier League seasons.
The hearing is supposed to last ten weeks and will begin when a separate case concerning City and the Premier League is resolved. The outcome of the latter is expected to be delivered in the next two weeks.
The alleged breaches include not being financially transparent over nine separate seasons, and not revealing details about the remuneration of players and managers in the past. Allegedly, the club didn't provide full details of Roberto Mancini's salary for the four seasons he was at the Etihad (2009 to 2013) and Yaya Toure's pay when he was at the club from 2010 to 2016.
Furthermore, Manchester City have been accused of not co-operating with the investigation and revealing their financial documents for the seasons ranging from 2018-19 to 2022-23.
The Premier League officially launched an investigation against the Cityzens after the publication of Football Leaks documents by German publication Der Spiegel. The documents included Roberto Mancini's contract and Yaya Toure's image rights documents that involved his agent. Manchester City have denied all accusations of wrongdoing.
Manchester City were banned by UEFA for two years in 2020
UEFA decided to impose a two-year ban on Manchester City after they found serious Financial Fair Play rule breaches in 2020. However, the ban was lifted months later by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and they also reduced the fine from $30 million to $10 million.
According to Sky Sports, CAS decided that most of the alleged breaches in FFP rules were either without substantial evidence or time-barred.
However, the club was still fined because of their failure to co-operate with the investigation. CAS didn't deem it appropriate to ban Manchester City from participating in UEFA competitions because of their inability to co-operate with UEFA's investigations.
Pep Guardiola's men start their 2024-25 Premier League campaign against Chelsea on Sunday, August 18, at the Stamford Bridge.