Manchester, Oct 13 (AP) The chair of English soccer’s regulatory body said Tuesday he would resign if there were any political interference over potential sanctions for Manchester City.
City has been found guilty of widespread breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules which could result in punishments including a massive fine, points deductions or even expulsion from England’s top flight.
Separately, the Independent Football Regulator has the powers to force club owners to sell and can withhold a license to operate if they are deemed unfit.
An independent panel found the United Arab Emirates-backed City had artificially inflated its revenue by more than $1 billion over nearly a decade, circumventing fair-play rules.
Football regulator chair David Kogan said it was still awaiting the outcome of City’s appeal against the verdict.
The UAE is a big investor in the U.K. Asked about the regulator’s ability to remain independent given wider relations between the governments, Kogan said “any form of political interference on the way we operate is going to result in my resigning from this role and I stand by that completely.”
“We’ve come under absolutely no political pressure whatsoever on this or any other topic. And I don’t expect to in the future,” he said.
Kogan’s comments came after U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he would be “really concerned” to lose City’s current ownership. Burnham also said he would not get “directly involved in the process.”
City is accused of providing misleading information about its finances over a nine-year period from 2009-18. During that time, it won three titles and signed some of the world’s best players. It went on to enjoy a period of unprecedented dominance of English soccer.
The guilty verdict represents the biggest scandal in Premier League history and raises questions over the future of the club, which is owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family.
The Independent Football Regulatory was established by the British government last year to set governance standards in English soccer.
Part of that includes the issuing of licenses for clubs to be able to operate, which will begin from November.
Kogan suggested the guilty verdict would not impact the issuing of a license to City because its appeal is ongoing.
“A verdict once it’s gone through an appeal process will certainly be something that we would clearly be taking into account when looking at awarding a license or looking at the owners, directors and senior executives,” he said.
State of the Game
Kogan was speaking in Manchester for the publication of the regulator’s “State of the Game” report into English soccer.
The report states that despite the success of English soccer — which includes the Premier League, the world’s richest and most popular league — 94% of clubs throughout the pyramid are loss-making and more than a quarter of clubs would be unable to survive more than 30 days if owners pulled funding.
It states a major problem is teams spending excessively to try to keep up with rivals.
“At the heart of English football’s success is a massive contradiction. While some of our clubs are among the richest and most competitive in the world, others are standing on the edge of financial disaster,” Kogan said. “This lack of resilience can no longer be ignored.”
English soccer has revenues of nine billion pounds ($11.92 billion) according to the report. Despite that, many clubs are “technically insolvent and increasingly reliant on owners,” it states.
Seventeen clubs “would be loss making even if their players played for free,” the regulator’s CEO Richard Monks said. “Owners in many football clubs will inject the money two or three days before payday and not keep any cash in the club. This is not how most businesses are run, and it’s a major issue which we will require football to address.”
The regulator has been involved in negotiations between the Premier League and the English Football League regarding what are known as solidarity payments to help develop England’s lower leagues. That includes parachute payments to teams relegated from the top flight.
The regulator is proposing a change to those payments to be more evenly spread among teams.
(PTI News)
