Manchester City’s UEFA competitions ban lifted by Court of Arbitration for Sport.

07/13/2020

In a landmark decision, the Court of Arbitration for Sport.(CAS) has overturned UEFA’s decision to ban Manchester City for two years after they were fond breaching financial fair-play rules. The verdict from the CAS also confirmed that the club’s fine of €30 million will be reduced to €10 million.

Nearly six months of waiting, Manchester City have won their appeal and their Champions League ban has been lifted by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The Cityzens were handed a two year ban and €30 million ban in February after being found guilty of “serious breaches” of UEFA’s financial fair-play rules after an investigation. However, the club has maintained their innocence and swiftly filed an appeal with CAS although the coronavirus pandemic has forced them to wait for quite a while.

But in a landmark decision, the CAS has overturned the UEFA competitions ban and reduced City’s fine to €10 million. The CAS agreed with the Cityzens that UEFA’s two year ban for breaching financial fair-play rules was wrong but at the same time, because the club failed to cooperate with the UEFA authorities the fine was maintained. The statement released by the CAS also revealed that “it was not appropriate to impose a ban” based on solely on the fact that City refused to cooperate.

“Following the hearing, the CAS Panel deliberated and concluded that the decision issued on 14 February 2020 by the Adjudicatory Chamber of the CFCB should be set aside and replaced by the following:

a.) MCFC has contravened Article 56 of the Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations.

b.) 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.

“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,” reads the statement.

“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.”