Ex-Man City financial adviser warns of ‘at least relegation’
A FORMER Manchester City financial adviser has revealed that the charges levelled against the club are on a ‘completely different scale’ to the rest of the league and relegation could be the least of their worries.
The current reigning champions were charged by the Premier League with 115 alleged breaches of financial regulations in February after opening an investigation in 2018.
Throughout a long-running saga, the competition and the club have remained tight-lipped — and both declined to comment when contacted.
Speaking on talk-SPORT, Stefan Borson, who was previously an advisor at the Etihad, was asked how different City’s charges are to Everton and Nottingham Forest.
He replied: ‘The scale is on a completely different level. There’s no question, if those charges are proven, this will end in at least relegation!
‘There is a suggestion of conspiracy over a 10year period. They’re suggesting that City’s main sponsorship agreements are not for £50-60million but are for actually £8m and the whole thing was a sham and a whole load of people lied.
‘A whole load of executives from multiple companies were in on it. The club also lied to multiple parties, professionals, people doing due diligence on the company, the league, UEFA, the FA.
‘If proven, this is super serious. Nobody would argue that.’
Asked whether they will clear their name, he added: ‘I think they will clear their name because a case of this nature has to have a level of cogent proof which seems to me impossible to present to independent comission.’
THE fashionable take on the troubles clubs such as Everton and Nottingham Forest are having with the Premier League’s financial regulations is, all of a sudden, to blame the rules. The top flight’s profit and sustainability regulations are indeed a barrier to some sensible, upwardly mobile clubs. However, some clubs need protecting from themselves and Forest look like one of them. This is a club that signs four right backs. A club that signs players the coaching staff don’t want or know about. A club that signs 43 players across three transfer windows. A club football agents laugh about. Forest say things would have been OK had they sold Brennan Johnson to Brentford in June rather than to Tottenham in August. Different accounting periods, you see. But fancy letting yourself sail so close to the wind. Fancy wasting money on so much dross you have to sell your best player anyway. Fancy taking two and a half decades to reach the top flight and then letting the owner’s son play Football Manager with the squad. Forest’s attempts at mitigation are spurious. They gambled and they lost. It’s hard to be sympathetic.