Manchester City Chief, Ferran Soriano denies breaches over FFP

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English Premier League soccer match

Manchester City’s “serious breaches” of UEFA’s club licensing and financial fair play regulations are “simply not true”, says chief executive Ferran Soriano.

On the 14th of February, Premier League reigning champions Manchester City were handed a two-year Champions League ban and fined 30m euros (£25m). However, the decision is subject to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Talking about the allegations and fine on the Cityzens, Soriano said,

 “The fans can be sure of two things. The first one is that the allegations are false,”

“And the second is that we will do everything that can be done to prove so.”

The independent Adjudicatory Chamber of the Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) said it had found the English Premier League club, Manchester City had broken the rules by “overstating its sponsorship revenue in its accounts and in the break-even information submitted to UEFA between 2012 and 2016”, adding that the club “failed to cooperate in the investigation”.

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At the time, the Pep Guardiola led side said they were “disappointed but not surprised” by the “prejudicial” decision and would appeal. In response to the allegations of overstating its sponsorship revenues, Soriano – speaking in a video released by the club – said:

“The owner has not put money in this club that has not been properly declared.

“We are a sustainable football club, we are profitable, we don’t have debt, our accounts have been scrutinised many times, by auditors, by regulators, by investors and this is perfectly clear.”

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The CEO of Manchester City also said that they were “considered guilty” on “every step of the way”.

The Spaniard said,

“We did cooperate with this process. We delivered a long list of documents and support that we believe is irrefutable evidence that the claims are not true,”

“At the end, this is an internal process that has been initiated and then prosecuted and then judged by this FFP [financial fair play] chamber at Uefa.”

However, the elite football body has declined to respond to Ferran Soriano’s statement.

The governing football body, UEFA,  launched an investigation after German newspaper Der Spiegel published leaked documents in November 2018 alleging Manchester City had inflated the value of a sponsorship deal, misleading European football’s governing body.

Reports also alleged that the Sheikh Mansour owned club, Manchester City have always denied wrongdoing and deliberately misled UEFA so they could meet financial fair play rules requiring clubs to break even.

City, whose chairman is Khaldoon Al Mubarak, were fined £49m in 2014 for a previous breach of regulations.

Soriano added the club was hoping for anearly resolution through a “thorough process and a fair process. He also opined:

He added:

“My best hope is that this will be finished before the beginning of the summer and until then for us, it is business as usual.”

On the other hand, rumours were circulating regarding their manager and players moving out of the club. However, it is heard that the Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has told friends he intends to stay at the club despite the European ban, with his contract set to expire in 2021.

His contract does have a break clause at the end of this season and it was anticipated he would activate it should City fail to win their appeal, which they will be submitting to the Court for Arbitration in Sport in the next few days. However, it is understood the 49-year-old has said he will not be doing that and remains committed to the club.

Can Manchester City come out of the allegations made on them or will they be banned from the Champions League action for the next two years opening the door for other teams in the Premier League? For daily updates, keep following Sportzcraazy