Manchester City’s legal challenge takes fresh twist as Premier League calls new emergency meeting this month | OneFootball

The legal challenge from Manchester City on the Premier League’s rules around associated party transaction (APTs) has now led to a new emergency meetings.

Current rules around sponsorships linked to clubs’ ownership were deemed ‘unlawful’ by a panel in early October, after Manchester City took the Premier League to a tribunal – which was reported earlier in the year.

The outcome of the tribunal saw an independent panel identify a number of areas which needed to be changed, with the lack of inclusion of shareholder loans found to be a key omission.

The outcome of the tribunal later saw the Premier League’s chief executive Richard Masters tell the division’s clubs that necessary amendments could be made ‘quickly and effectively’, leaving those within Manchester City furious.

The Etihad Stadium club’s legal counsel, Simon Cliff told the rest of the clubs in the Premier League to dismiss Masters’ claim, accusing the league’s CEO of ‘misleading clubs’ and urging against a ‘knee-jerk reaction’.

Manchester City further insisted at the time that then was the moment for ‘careful reflection and consideration by all clubs, and not for a knee-jerk reaction’.

Now it appears as though such steps are being taken to source a resolution to the issue, with the Premier League having issued proposals to changes in a wide-ranging documents to clubs, to be voted upon later this month.

According to the information of MailSport’s Mike Keegan, the Premier League has called a meeting later in November in the hope of changing sponsorship rules that were deemed unlawful following a legal challenge from Manchester City.

It is detailed that the Premier League’s clubs have been summoned to Central London on November 22 at which a vote will be held on amendments to regulations around Associated Party Transactions (APTs).

MailSport’s report explains that they have seen a 14-page document outlining proposed changes which has been sent to all 20 Premier League clubs ahead of their meeting at the Nobu Hotel in Portman Square, London.

Of the 20 votes available from the Premier League’s clubs, the matter would require seven to vote against proposals in order to stop them from going through, and should amendments attract the votes needed in order to be passed, they would become effective immediately.

A statement from Manchester City, issued upon the release of the award last month, read, “Following today’s publication of the Rule X Arbitral Tribunal Award, Manchester City Football Club thanks the distinguished members of the Arbitral Tribunal for their work and considerations and welcomes their findings:

The Club has succeeded with its claim: the Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules have been found to be unlawful and the Premier League’s decisions on two specific MCFC sponsorship transactions have been set aside.

The Tribunal found that both the original APT rules and the current, (amended) APT Rules violate UK competition law and violate the requirements of procedural fairness.

The Premier League was found to have abused its dominant position.

The Tribunal has determined both that the rules are structurally unfair and that the Premier League was specifically unfair in how it applied those rules to the Club in practice.

The rules were found to be discriminatory in how they operate, because they deliberately excluded shareholder loans.

As well as these general findings on legality, the Tribunal has set aside specific decisions of the Premier League to restate the fair market value of two transactions entered into by the Club.

The tribunal held that the Premier League had reached the decisions in a procedurally unfair manner.

The Tribunal also ruled that there was an unreasonable delay in the Premier League’s fair market value assessment of two of the Club’s sponsorship transactions, and so the Premier League breached its own rules.”