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Details of Manchester City’s legal challenge to the Premier League’s updated rules on commercial deals have been shared with the other 19 top-flight clubs. City launched arbitration proceedings on January 20 against the validity of the league’s amended associated party transaction (APT) rules, which seek to ensure deals struck between clubs and entities linked to their ownership are for fair market value. The league is understood to have emailed clubs on Thursday to inform them of a statement of claim from City, which is dated March 27.
The claim sets out the detail of City’s argument against the rules. The Times report that it criticises the Premier League’s treatment of shareholder loans under the new APT rules, saying that it is “distorting economic competition” between clubs. At a Premier League Shareholders’ meeting today, clubs approved changes to the League’s Associated Party Transaction rules The amendments address the findings of an Arbitration Tribunal following a legal challenge by Man City to the APT system More: https://t.
co/RDXkOYlzzU pic.twitter.com/WCSLkQwxJM — Premier League Communications (@PLComms) November 22, 2024 The Times report that the claim names Arsenal, Brighton, Everton and Leicester as clubs who have had an unfair advantage as a result of how shareholder loans have been treated.
The APT rules were originally introduced in December 2021, following the Saudi-led takeover of Newcastle earlier that year. Those rules were successfully challenged by City last year, with a tribunal finding them unlawful on multiple grounds, including the fact that they excluded shareholder loans from fair market value assessments. That led to the Premier League consulting with clubs on amendments to the rules, with 16 teams voting in favour of the amended rules at a meeting last November.
City launched a challenge to those amended rules in January, with the statement of claim shared with clubs on Thursday linked to that challenge. City and the Premier League have declined to comment. The intention of the rules is to prevent clubs inflating the value of sponsorship and other deals in order to artificially boost revenue, which would effectively increase a club’s spending power.
City’s challenges to the APT rules sit separate to more than 100 charges the club face over alleged breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules between 2009 and 2018, all strenuously denied. The league and City are awaiting an outcome in that case, which was heard by an independent panel between September and December last year..
