UEFA investigators send Manchester City case to judges
MANCHESTER CITY’S possible one-year ban from the Champions League is in the hands of a panel of independent judges.
UEFA said yesterday its club finance investigators have sent the file on the Premier League champions to the judges, but the governing body did not publish the recommended punishment or a timetable for the verdict.
City are suspected of breaking rules that monitor commercial income and spending on player transfers and wages. The most serious sanction, the ban from the Champions League, could apply next season.
The chief investigator in the case was Yves Leterme, a former prime minister of Belgium. The chief judge, José Narciso da Cunha Rodrigues of Portugal, also sits at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
City hit back yesterday at what it called “a wholly unsatisfactory, curtailed, and hostile process” overseen by UEFA.
“The accusation of financial irregularities remains entirely false and the ... referral ignores a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence provided by Manchester City,” the club said.
UEFA’s club finance panel opened a formal case against City in March “for potential breaches of financial fair play regulations that were made public in various media outlets”.
Internal documents about City’s business and emails between club executives have been published in the Football Leaks series led by German magazine Der Spiegel. The revelations implied City officials deceived UEFA for several years, including by disguising that revenue from potentially overvalued commercial deals came from the club’s owners in Abu Dhabi.