BY Jonathan Ledger
Manchester City will not be banned from the Champions League after a successful appeal to the court of arbitration for sport (CAS).
The development was announced on Monday after the court cleared the English Premier League (EPL) side of “disguising equity funds”.
In February, City were handed a two-year ban from UEFA’s competition after being found guilty of “serious breaches” of club licensing and financial fair play (FFP) regulations between 2012 and 2016.
City’s ban was, however, overturned in its entirety, while the fine was reduced from €30 million to €10 million following CAS’ verdict.
“MCFC has contravened Article 56 of the Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations. MCFC shall pay a fine of EUR 10,000,000 to the UEFA, within 30 days as from the date of issuance of the arbitral award,” read a statement by the court.
“The CAS award emphasized that most of the alleged breaches reported by the Adjudicatory Chamber of the CFCB were either not established or time-barred. As the charges with respect to any dishonest concealment of equity funding were clearly more significant violations than obstructing the CFCB’s investigations, it was not appropriate to impose a ban on participating in UEFA’s club competitions for MCFC’s failure to cooperate with the CFCB’s investigations alone.
“However, considering i) the financial resources of MCFC; ii) the importance of the cooperation of clubs in investigations conducted by the CFCB, because of its limited investigative means; and iii) MCFC’s disregard of such principle and its obstruction of the investigations, the CAS Panel found that a significant fine should be imposed on MCFC and considered it appropriate to reduce UEFA’s initial fine by 2/3, i.e. to the amount of EUR 10 million.”
Manchester City are currently second on the EPL table and have qualified for next season’s Champions League.
Favourites to win the UCL this season, City hold a 2-1 advantage over Real Madrid going into the second leg of their round of 16 encounter.
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