Manchester City has launched their latest legal attack on the Premier League – via a murder of his attempt to change his sponsor tiles over dozens of damn pages.
Last year the four-in-a-row champions about the competition when a tribunal discovered that the regulations of the Associated Party Transaction (APT) designed to prevent clubs from signing bloated commercial deals with companies related to their owners and introduced unintentional take-off-the-conducted leds-ledging commanded.
Despite countless warnings from City, clubs with 16 to 4 voted to Back Premier League to change the rules in November instead of rewriting the rules.
And the assembled legal team of City has now explicitly implemented that promise through another burning attack, which claims that the adjusted regulations continue to 'discriminate' and emphasize a large number of rivals, including Arsenal, which they say they enjoy an unfair advantage.
The same panel that the side of the city chose to their original complaint will reign again. If City succeeds for the second time, it would dismiss the financial rules of the Premier League and see clubs hit again with a substantial legal account.
The case is separate from the 130 charges against the city by the League due to alleged infringements of financial rules. However, City uses the same legal team to represent itself.
The argument of the city, shared with clubs by the Premier League, is wide double. The original rules were strange, largely thanks to the fact that shareholders' loans – funds that were usually borrowed from clubs at favorable or zero interest rates by owners – were not subject to the same 'real market value' (FMV) test as commercial deals.
The amended APT rules try to tackle that issue by allowing clubs that have benefited from shareholders' loans to see them convert into equity during a 'respite period' that ended in January.
Those who are not converted are subject to an FMV test that, according to the city, still discriminates because clubs can keep the loan, are not obliged to pay interest at FMV and only have to take into account figures that are received for the first time in the accounts of this season – which they believe can be excluded for a maximum of three years.
The city says that such a 'differential treatment' means that the control changes 'do not eliminate, but on the contrary perpetuate the discriminatory and distortive treatment that was previously found by the tribunal'.
They also emphasize the fact that shareholder loans can be paid in full before an FMV assessment is carried out, in contrast to the waiting period of 30 days, a deal with a corresponding party is subject to a significant cash flow benefit and cost reduction for the club that receives the shareholders loan '. They add: “This continuous preferential and discriminatory treatment of shareholder loans has the object and/or effect of deforming the economic competition between member clubs in affected markets.”
In an extensive attack, City says that the rules as they stand 'do not meet the requirements of transparency, objectivity, precision and proportionality … and can distort competition'.
The Premier League interpreted the first findings of the tribunal as a verification of the majority of the APT rules and believed that they could easily make a small number of changes. City insisted on this not to do this and were supported by others, including Aston Villa.
They asked the Premier League to keep a fire until the tribunal ruled whether all the rules – instead of just certain sections – were void. In February the panel did exactly that, where the rules are void and not -unable to do 'in their whole. The Premier League claimed that the statement had no influence on the changed rules, which according to them are still 'valid and enforceable'.
But lawyers for City Die have spent their first challenge after a broad deal with Etihad was blocked by the Premier League sealing in the second half of their argument that this is not the case and that the changes are invalid.
“This invalidity means that the changes themselves are void, because it is not legally possible to change rules that are void,” they add.
To illustrate their point, City also delves into the accounts of rival clubs within 88 pages, pointing out that Arsenal benefited from shareholders to an amount of approximately £ 259 million in 2022-23, which Brighton benefited from the shareholders of shareholders shareholders. 2021-22.
Another victory for City would send the Premier League back to the drawing table and press the CEO Richard Masters. It would also return clubs to the pre-2021 system, which did not contain APT rules. Instead, there were less rigorous regulations for deals with 'related parties'.
The Premier League refused to comment.
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