- “What if an infinitely rich owner bankrupts the Premier League?”
- It’s not the fact that Forest were fined £750,00: the question is still “Why?”
By Tony Attwood
It is starting to be reported that individual clubs in the Premier League are willing to sue Manchester City if the club is found guilty of breaching Financial Fair Play regulations. This thought which has been posited in the Manchester Evening News and other sources comes about because ManC appear to have been issuing threats to the effect that they could tie the League up legal hearings until they go bust while in effect preventing all reform that they don’t particularly like.
Meanwhile, although some are predicting that the case against ManC in terms of the 115 charges against them is just about over, other sources are saying that a verdict is not expected until next year, and indeed whatever the outcome either side could appeal. However, what could happen is that the clubs would issue a notice reserving the right to appeal – which then gives the clubs six years actually to submit their claim.
There is also talk going on that if they lose, ManC will then claim that the case is now out of time and therefore no penalty can be imposed. That could lead to another case.
It is perhaps in consideration of such thoughts that the Independent made the point that all this would effectively put the league into limbo with your actual football results al being provisional for years to come. This in turn could mean that club directors would be unwilling to paying for anything planned for the future.
It is of course true that the Premier League needs only 14 votes to see through any motion, and with ManC voting against everything until it wins all its cases, this implies it only a modest number of allies to stop everything. Several clubs including Aston Villa have already shown their inclination to support ManC, although of course any attempt by the club to influence other clubs other than by logic could be considered bribery.
The worry however is that some clubs will start to abstain on all issues so that in the event of a ManC victory ManC will look upon such clubs beningly. But the net effect would be that the League would not be able to vote anything through for years, and would effectively be stymied. ManC would continue to win the league each season so wouldn’t mind.
In short people within the game are now saying the League is now ungovernable just at a time when the government’s independent regulator for football is about to be appointed.
Given that no one but no one expects any sort of compromise from ManC (their owners own a country with a load of oil in the ground and so the concept of compromise is not actually part of their political thinking) the suggestion from ManC that the rest of the league should now come to ManC to negotiate a settlement is not surprising.
ManC’s view is that the League had lost, given they are facing an organisation that has bought into Khaldoon Al Mubarak’s vision that he “would rather spend £30m on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue them for the next 10 years”.
It should also be noted that Uefa too is subject to threats from ManC with the Association being told to settle the situation, “to avoid the destruction of their rules and organisation.”
My reading of the situation (and of course that is all this is; for much of this I don’t have inside information, I just read all the reports and comments and try to infer what might happen now) is that if ManC are found guilty of some of the more serious of the 115 charges, they could be expelled from the league – which of course reveals just how huge a misjudgement ManC have made with the case that has just been concluded.
But the point is, expelling ManC from the League would be subject to appeal. But the alternative of, clubs resigning from the League would be a matter for each club, just as it was when they resigned from the Football League.
Indeed, to show how far this has gone, the Independent includes this comment in its reporting… “The wonder is what next. Would some clubs follow through on previously impotent talk of suing the PGMOL?”
Now that’s a thought.
