The president of the European football governing body, UEFA, Aleksander Čeferin, has drawn attention to UEFA’s overturned ban on Manchester City as the 2022/23 treble-winners await the trial for their 115 Premier League breaches.
After accusing the UAE-owned club of breaking several financial fair play rules as well as profitability and sustainability rules from 2009 until 2018, the Premier League are now finally set to conduct a trial to determine the level of guilt of the club.
This comes after a couple of other Premier League clubs, most notably Everton, were subjected to similar trials. Punishment has been doled out to Everton but the Toffees are still on trial, with more punishment awaiting them should the new judgement establish their guilt.
City’s is a long time coming. Fans and pundits with no bias for City have even accused the Premier League of delaying the club’s trial for various reasons. With the trial now around the corner, Čeferin has reminisced on when UEFA had deemed them guilty of breaching the same laws on the continental scale in 2020.
The judgement came with a two-year ban from European football and a huge fine. City, however, appealed the judgement at the International Court of Arbitration for Sport and got the judgement overturned.
Čeferin insists UEFA was right and believes the Premier League hearing will reinforce their decision.
“As a trial lawyer for 25 years, I know that, sometimes, you win a case that you are sure you will lose”, Čeferin said. “And, sometimes, you lose a case when you’re sure… You just simply have to respect in a serious democracy the decision of the court.”
“We know we were right. We wouldn’t decide if we didn’t think we were right.”
“I don’t want to speak about the case in England. But I trust that the decision of our independent body was correct. I didn’t enter into this decision.”
Ceferin then pointed out the frustrations of the other clubs who have been punished for breaches that are much lighter than the ones allegedly done by City. He also showed empathy towards them and what the Premier League is having to deal with.
“They [other clubs] want to know what’s going on and what are the consequences but I don’t want to enter into this concrete process because I don’t know what the Premier League is dealing with”, he explained.
“I really don’t want to criticise, or something like that. It wouldn’t be fair.”
