City go to war with the Premier League (again!)

Champions to take on top flight over new restrictions on sponsors

THE Premier League are braced for another legal battle with Manchester City over changes to top-flight sponsorship rules, which the reigning champions claim breach competition law.

The League fought off a rebellion yesterday as they succeeded in tightening rules on ‘associated party’ transactions (APTs) by 12 votes to six with two abstentions — but City have threatened to escalate the matter.

APT rules are designed to keep the Premier League competitive by preventing clubs from boosting their coffers by signing inflated commercial deals with companies that have links to any of their owners, players, managers or senior officials.

But the top flight are understood to have told clubs that City have indicated they may seek a private arbitration hearing to scupper the new rules. City’s opposition to tighter APT rules is longstanding, and critics claim they are being introduced due to the club being owned by the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund. City are particularly affected as four of their top 10 sponsors are linked to the UAE, including stadium and shirt sponsor Etihad.

City are already engaged in a seismic legal battle with the Premier League, who have charged them with 115 counts of breaching spending rules in a landmark case that is due to take place in the autumn.

A number of other clubs also oppose the new rules, having entered into several related party transactions. Newcastle are majority-owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and have their shirts sponsored by Sela, a Saudi sports rights enterprise.

Chelsea recently agreed a one-year shirt sponsorship deal with Infinite Athlete, a newly formed leisure company whose investors include Blues co-owners Todd Boehly and

Behdad Eghbali. The Premier League only managed to get the new rules introduced thanks to the two abstentions that gave them the required two-thirds majority, which illustrates the major divisions within the top flight.

Meanwhile, City boss Pep Guardiola yesterday told his team to forget the ‘fairytale’ of winning back- to- back Trebles, claiming there is only a 0.01 per cent chance they will sweep the board again.

City host Everton in the Premier League today before beginning their Champions League knockout campaign at Copenhagen on Wednesday and travelling to Luton Town in the FA Cup fifth round at the end of the month.

‘This isn’t a fairytale my friend, it’s more complicated than that — the chances to do it again are like this,’ huffed Guardiola while pinching his fingers together.

‘We have a 99.99 per cent possibility that we are not going to win the Treble because nobody ever, ever, ever has done it. If it was easy, another team — Manchester United in 1999 — would have done it. It’s not easy. What we’ve done in the past doesn’t guarantee anything.’

Guardiola also urged Jack Grealish to rediscover his form after a stop-start season plagued by a dead leg, a burglary, illness and the form of Jeremy Doku.

‘This season was not like last season but he’s getting better,’ said the City boss. ‘He’s doing the steps to get to his best level and now is competing at a high level.

‘He has to demand himself to get back where he was especially last season and all the time at Aston Villa.’