believe their successful appeal against UEFA in 2020 strengthens their case as they seek to overturn the Premier League commission’s guilty verdict.

City lodged their appeal earlier this month, maintaining their innocence and arguing that the commission’s findings contain “clear material errors, of law, principle and fact”. The club are understood to believe there are significant parallels with their previous case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, particularly over the weight placed on leaked emails and the evidence required to prove wrongdoing.

Man City point to CAS ruling

The Telegraph reports that City reject the suggestion that their UEFA punishment was overturned in 2020 simply because allegations were time-barred. Some of UEFA’s allegations did fall outside the relevant five-year limitation period, but CAS also considered the central allegation that City had disguised equity funding as sponsorship income.

The leaked emails which prompted UEFA’s investigation were admissible, but the majority of the CAS panel found there was insufficient evidence to establish that the arrangements discussed in them had actually been carried out. City are understood to see that distinction as significant to their latest appeal, believing the Premier League case also places too much weight on leaked emails without sufficient evidence to prove the conclusions drawn from them.

There is, however, an important difference.

The Premier League proceedings are separate and an independent commission has already found that City used sham agreements to artificially inflate revenue and filed accounts which concealed the true state of their finances. City must now convince the three-person Appeal Board that material errors were made in reaching those findings.

The 2020 CAS judgment therefore forms part of the background to their defence, but it does not determine the outcome of a separate case fought under different rules and on a different body of evidence.

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Gary is an experienced football journalist who has written for, among many others, BBC Sport and The Metro, and is now the editor of ReadEverton.com. He leads daily coverage of Everton news, transfers and analysis as part of the dave.sport network. He also writes for ReadManCity.com, ReadMotorsport and ReadNorwich within the same network. When not writing, he enjoys a nice cold pint of Guinness and trips to the cinema ... not always at the same time.

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