Manchester City

Manchester City: Journalist discusses City’s ‘obstruction’ of UEFA’s Financial Fair Play investigation

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Image for Manchester City: Journalist discusses City’s ‘obstruction’ of UEFA’s Financial Fair Play investigation

Rob Harris, who is a global sports correspondent for The Associated Press, joined host Josh Schneider-Weiler on the most recent edition of the Football Today podcast to discuss the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) decision to overturn Manchester City’s UEFA ban after CAS’ reasons in full for overturning the ban were released last week.

CAS overturned Manchester City’s two-year ban from UEFA competitions on 13 July. As per the BBC, while City ‘were cleared of “disguising equity funds as sponsorship contributions,”’ they were still deemed to have failed to “cooperate with UEFA authorities,” when UEFA were initially trying to investigate a potential breach of their Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules by City.

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Harris shared his thoughts on City’s failure to “co-operate with UEFA authorities” in this case, following the release of CAS’ full ruling, during his recent appearance on the Football Today podcast, saying: “When we had the initial, brief verdict from CAS two weeks earlier, [it] talked about non-cooperation, it might have been on this very podcast where I said that seemed to stop short of obstruction.

“Well, what we did see from the full findings, was actually – City did obstruct the case and the CAS panel was not very pleased with that at all, because, actually, it sent out a wrong message to others who might take cases to CAS in future, in terms of when they’re facing UEFA action as well.

“Now, probably at the heart of the reason for the obstruction, as City would put it, is they had no faith in the UEFA processes in the investigatory chamber, in the judiciary chamber, so they were waiting until they had the case heard at CAS to present new evidence.

“What it seems though, is that actually, the remit for taking cases to CAS [is] you can’t suddenly introduce new evidence that you could’ve done earlier on in the process.”

Should Manchester City have cooperated more with UEFA?

YES

YES

NO

NO

TIF Thoughts…

Manchester City and the club’s fans may be happy that their two-year ban from UEFA competitions was overturned as they were cleared of breaching FFP, however, after CAS’ findings in full have been released, it appears as though City did still handle UEFA’s initial investigation poorly, with CAS declaring that the club ‘showed a “blatant disregard”’ to that investigation, as per the BBC.

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