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Hello! Silence in court. A fresh legal fight has broken out between Manchester City and the Premier League.
On the way:
City launch legal action: What is the latest case?
City are suing the Premier League over their APT rules (Naomi Baker/Getty Images)
Aspiring lawyers, not to mention those who have already passed the bar, are well-advised to gravitate towards the Premier League.
Another day, more in-fighting in the world’s richest division, and another legal case facing the people who run it. Yesterday, we learned Manchester City are suing the Premier League — in a dispute separate to the 115 financial charges facing the club on another front.
Just so there’s no confusion: the 115 charges brought against City by the Premier League accuse them of cheating financial rules between 2009 and 2018, which they deny, and failing to cooperate with a subsequent investigation. City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak has taken a pot-shot at the governing body today, calling for “more sensibility in regulating”.
This latest battle is different, as Jacob Whitehead explains. What City are challenging, and attempting to change, are the Premier League’s restrictions on associated party transactions (APTs) — which we’re going to explain.
What is an APT?
APTs are commercial deals — often sponsorship contracts — struck by clubs in which money comes from parties or firms with close ties to their owners.
To use City as an example, their shirt and stadium sponsor is Etihad, the United Arab Emirates’ state airline. As of 2022, that sponsorship was worth close to £70m ($89m) annually. City’s owner, the Abu Dhabi United Group, has very close links to the UAE’s government.
Unsurprisingly, certain clubs wanted these agreements to be subject to a fair market value test — to make sure that rival owners were not effectively sponsoring themselves to the tune of however much cash they liked, thereby gaming profit and sustainability rules (PSR).
APT rules were tightened up after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) acquired Newcastle United in 2021, for fear that PIF would use companies it controlled to plough inflated sponsorship into Newcastle’s coffers. The regulations were updated again a few months ago.
City, who have the Premier League’s highest annual revenue at £712m ($909m), routinely abstained or voted against these restrictions. Now they are mounting legal action, claiming the revised rules were hurried through three years ago and designed to target specific teams.
According to The Times newspaper in London, City claim they are victims of the “tyranny of the majority”. They want the rules rewritten again — and they want compensation for losses they say they have suffered in the meantime.
What happens next?
City’s complaint will be dealt with at a two-week hearing, starting a week on Monday (June 10).
Man City are taking legal action against the Premier League — what does it all mean?
It’s another headache for the Premier League ahead of its annual general meeting (AGM), which starts tomorrow. The governing body is braced for its 115 charges against City to be ruled upon later this year.
If City successfully contest the legality of APTs, the Premier League will have to think again about how it controls them. A lawyer quoted in Jacob’s piece, Daniel Gore, thinks a City win could also prompt fresh challenges to PSR. So keep that courtroom open…
VAR vote: Clubs will have say on controversial system
Better news for the Premier League: Wolverhampton Wanderers’ bid to scrap VAR forthwith sounds doomed to fail.
The proposal will be voted on at this week’s AGM. It needs a two-thirds majority to pass and the word on the grapevine indicates it’s unlikely to get anywhere near the threshold.
That’s not to say all is fine and dandy with VAR, but it tells us that most clubs want a cure rather than a kill.
Assuming it survives, next season we’ll see the introduction of semi-automated offside reviews, in-stadium announcements explaining decisions (long, long overdue), and a strengthening of the ‘clear and obvious’ threshold for overturning on-field calls (easier in theory than in practice, I suspect).
Get all that right and clubs will make peace with VAR. Won’t they?
Show Viz: Why everyone wants Sesko
A No 9 at Arsenal cannot simply be a poacher. The complexity of Mikel Arteta’s system is why Kai Havertz has worked there. It’s part of the reason Eddie Nketiah might be leaving.
Yesterday’s Transfer DealSheet — The Athletic’s new encyclopaedic guide to the transfer market — highlighted RB Leipzig’s Benjamin Sesko as a player Arsenal are tracking in this summer’s window. And from Elias Burke’s analysis of him, you can see why.
Sesko, 21, is a goalscorer — 14 in the Bundesliga in 2023/24 — but he’s more than that, too. He’s got a pumped-up shot volume, he threatens from a variety of ranges, and his touches in the opposition box (above) paint him as a constant nuisance.
His release clause stands at £55.3m ($70.8m), which is not exactly a bank-breaker for Arsenal. The thought must be in Arteta’s head that if he doesn’t do Sesko, another coach will.
Sleek stadiums: What you need to know about Copa America arenas
(Getty Images; design: John Bradford)
Elias has been busy. Not content with dissecting Sesko’s skill set, he’s put together an ace guide to the stadiums hosting the 2024 Copa America in the U.S..
On my bucket list: seeing the Jerrytron in Dallas (above, left) and eating “junk food of a higher quality” in Atlanta. Oh, and you’ll chuckle at the cost of building Arrowhead Stadium: $43m (£34m), which hardly buys a steel girder these days.
🎙️ The Athletic FC podcast has launched its terrific Radar series, profiling the best up-and-coming stars at the Euros and the Copa.
Two rising stars: Yohannes, 16, scores for USWNT; Is Wharton England’s next pass master?
Yohannes, 16, scores for USWNT; Is Wharton England’s next pass master?
What were you doing at the age of 16 (I generally prefer not to ask myself that)?
Well, here’s Lily Yohannes doing what none of us were doing, scoring for the USWNT in a 3-0 win over South Korea last night.
A DREAM DEBUT FOR LILY!!!!#USWNT x @VW pic.twitter.com/RWlOYpLSjj
— U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (@USWNT) June 5, 2024
The mad thing? She’s only the third-youngest USWNT goalscorer of all time. Good enough equals old enough, which is why I was playing in our local public park.
Meanwhile, does Adam Wharton’s England debut against Bosnia and Herzegovina on Monday — cool as you like, ending with a 100 per cent pass completion rate — get the 20-year-old Crystal Palace midfielder a ticket to the Euros?
Don’t bet against it.
Catch A Match
International friendlies (ET/UK times): Denmark v Sweden (1pm/6pm) — Fubo, Premier Sports 2; France vs Luxembourg (3pm/8pm) — ViX, Premier Sports 2
(Top photo: Daniel Chesterton/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
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