Arsenal told when Man City could be Punished for breaking FFP rules as Mikel Arteta awaits his mentor Pep Guardiola to be hit with points deduction like Everton and Juventus.
All eyes are on Manchester City’s ongoing Financial Fair Play investigation after the Premier League announced that Everton would be receiving a 10-point deduction last week. The Toffees were found guilty of breaking financial regulations, with an independent Commission determining that they had breached the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSRs).
Back in February of this year, City were hit with 115 charges – which they deny – following on from a five-year investigation that spanned between 2009 and 2018. Meanwhile, claims emerged earlier this month that former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich had been paying for services throughout his time at the club through offshore companies.
The west London club haven’t been charged at this moment in time, although it remains to be seen what exactly may follow if there is an investigation. There have even been claims that if found guilty, City or Chelsea could be hit with a point deduction exceeding the one Everton received whilst some have even called for relegation.
But David Ornstein of The Athletic has made the point that City’s charges are not the same as the Toffees’. Speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Bet, Ornstein said: “We must talk about the fact that the cases involving Manchester City and Chelsea are not the same as Everton’s.
“Everyone is saying that Manchester City must be relegated if found guilty, but we don’t know because they are not charged with the same things.” When asked why it was dragging on, Ornstein added: “Playing devil’s advocate, Everton admitted their wrongdoing, it’s there in the report and so they complied to say let’s get this over and done with.
“Manchester City deny any wrongdoing, strenuously and they claim to have irrefutable evidence. (Where?) Well, they are waiting for the Premier League to bring the case, we don’t know where is the independent panel.
“It will be a fierce legal battle and there are suggestions that maybe it was easier to take on Everton and their lawyers than it will be with Manchester City. They already came through the UEFA process over Financial Fair Play because it was time-barred but the Premier League don’t have a time bar.
“However, you don’t know that the things that were time-barred, Manchester City would have been found guilty of. This is much more complicated and if you think that Everton’s case of one charge ran into tens of thousands of pages of documentation, what do you think about Manchester City’s with 115 charges?
“We should point out that many of them were for alleged non-cooperation but Manchester City will say: ‘We don’t believe in the process and the people running it and we don’t believe we have been given a fair hearing.’ Many of those 115 are repeated of the same charges each season which you could say that’s even worse but it shows the complexity of the situation.”
Manchester United legend Gary Neville also spoke about the situation, lamenting the Premier League for their decision to dock Everton as many as ten points.
The former England international added: “Everton’s trust and faith [in the Premier League] has gone completely. The greed and selfishness is out of control – it’s lawless.
“The Premier League is a defunct organisation because they’ve got 20 clubs all voting with self-interest. This has been coming for many years. The Super League clubs that tried to destroy the whole of European football – they were fined a total of £22million, £3.5million for each team, which is an absolute disgrace and a scandal for what they attempted to do, which was the attempted murder of our game.”
City currently sit top of the league table, one point ahead of Liverpool and Arsenal in second and third respectively, with the Reds boasting a superior goal difference to the north Londoners.