Man City statement reveals eight APT findings with the Premier League ‘breaching its own rules’

Man City have released a statement outlining eight key findings after they scored a major victory over the Premier League on Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules.

The Citizens had been embroiled in a legal battle with the Premier League as they challenge the APT rules in place, claiming the current regulations are “unlawful”.

APT rules are designed to ensure any commercial deal or player transfer between a club and entities with links to that club’s ownership are conducted at fair market value, so that club revenues are not artificially inflated.

And The Times revealed on Monday that the arbitration panel declared the APT rules ‘unlawful’, with clubs now effectively free to do any commercial deals they wish without any independent judgement being made on whether those deals were for fair market value.

Man City picked out eight key points from the arbitration panel’s findings and thanked them for their “work and considerations”.

The Man City statement 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.

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–          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.’

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