Man City eye potential High Court battle over Premier League’s FFP verdict – Exclusive

Manchester City could take their fight against FFP charges to the High Court

Manchester City may be heading towards a potential High Court battle over their Premier League arbitration decision, leading sports lawyer Dan Chapman has exclusively told TEAMtalk.

The Premier League confirmed on Tuesday that an Independent Commission had found City guilty of breaching the majority of the financial rules they were accused of breaking and also of failing to co-operate with the investigation.

Documentation from the Premier League that City inflated their revenues by some £900m does not bode well.

City’s legal team, headed by Lord Pannick KC, is believed to be already working on an appeal ahead of the October 2 deadline.

However, with City CEO Ferran Soriano confirming the club will pursue “all other legal avenues available to us in order to win the case”, Chapman believes the legal fight could ultimately move beyond the Premier League’s arbitration process.

Speaking exclusively to TEAMtalk, Chapman, Managing Partner and Head of Sports Law at Leathes Prior, said: “Given the statements by City via Soriano, I think it is reasonable to conclude that City will look to challenge the Independent Commission’s decision – whether that be the liability decision or the ultimate sanction decision, in the High Courts.”

The Premier League rules require disputes of this nature to go through the agreed arbitration process, but there are limited circumstances in which an arbitration decision can be challenged in the courts.

Chapman believes a Section 68 challenge could provide City with one possible route.

“The starting point is that Premier League clubs have agreed, via their rules, to use only the agreed arbitration process for disputes such as this. However, as with any arbitration case – sporting or otherwise – there are very narrow routes that might see an arbitration matter challenged in the more public forum of the Courts,” he explained.

“The most likely route, which we can perhaps detect from the statements released by City so far, is what is known as a s68 challenge – which broadly means that it is alleged that the arbitration decision was based on serious procedural irregularity which caused substantial injustice.”

The threshold for such a challenge is extremely high, as Chapman goes on to explain…

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“The bar is exceptionally high; it is not enough to show there have been some mere procedural errors or that City think the Commission did a very poor job of understanding the mass of evidence,” Chapman added.

City have already taken the Premier League to the High Court through this route.

In 2021, they challenged an arbitration award relating to an earlier procedural stage of the current proceedings, arguing that the appointment of the arbitrators was not impartial. That challenge was unsuccessful.

Newcastle United also challenged the appointment of an arbitrator in the High Court in 2021, with that action also failing.

There is, however, a football precedent for a successful Section 68 challenge.

Chapman pointed to the case involving AFC Fylde and Fleetwood Town, in which Fleetwood successfully persuaded the High Court to set aside an arbitration award following serious procedural concerns.

“The main reason for that outcome was that after the arbitration hearing it had been proven that the arbitrator had corresponded with the FA about the scope and content of its rules, without telling the parties or letting them make submissions on the issues at hand,” Chapman said.

But such cases remain extremely rare…

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“Fleetwood is a notable exception; successful challenges in the civil courts against arbitration awards are extremely rare, outside of sports cases too,” Chapman added.

The strength of the Independent Commission’s findings could also make any future challenge particularly difficult.

The commission’s written reasons, released in redacted form, included strong findings regarding alleged “sham contracts” and agreements which it said were used to artificially inflate City’s revenues and reduce costs.

Chapman said: “Given that the Manchester City arbitration was held over such a long period of time with such extensive and able legal representation involved, and having read the detail of the Core Decision’s findings, it is difficult to envisage how a High Court challenge could be successful.”

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Nevertheless, he believes City’s public stance points towards an extended legal battle.

“The statements we are seeing so far from City do little to suggest they have any time for such negativity, or some might say realism, and I think we can expect that, amongst all other options available to them to appeal the Independent Commission’s decision on liability and in time sanction, an attempted challenge to the High Court is now inevitable.”

City’s immediate priority remains their appeal against the commission’s decision, with the October 2 deadline looming.

But according to Chapman, the battle over the Premier League’s verdict could ultimately extend beyond football’s own arbitration system and into the High Court.

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