La Liga president Javier Tebas says the prolonged Manchester City case is damaging the Premier League’s credibility and creating uncertainty over financial rules.
LONDON: The protracted disciplinary case involving Manchester City has been “damaging” for the Premier League, according to Spain’s La Liga president Javier Tebas.
English powerhouse City were charged in February 2023 with over 100 alleged breaches of the league’s financial rules. The club vigorously denies all charges against them.
Yet more than three years later no verdicts have been made public. An independent commission heard the case between September and December 2024.
Tebas said his problem was not so much the length of time being taken to make a ruling. He argued the drawn-out process had created “uncertainty” regarding the application of rules.
Other clubs have been charged and sanctioned over rule breaches all within the same period. “I understand that it’s a failure (of governance) — this happened with Manchester City and other clubs are looking and watching and listening,” Tebas said at a media briefing in London.
“(Other clubs are) being fined, having points deducted, and that’s fine if you don’t abide by the rules. But Manchester City has impunity. I speak to a lot of Premier League clubs, and the majority don’t understand this either. That makes the institution weaker.”
The chief of Spanish football’s top flight added that the issue was “the general situation”. He said a great institution like the Premier League needs “a lot of legal certainty” when it has financial fair play rules.
City have previously said they have a “comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence” to prove they’ve done nothing wrong. Premier League chief executive Richard Masters was asked about the City case at the same event later.
“I can’t talk about it, I can’t talk about the timing of it,” he said. Asked if the case had made the league consider a quicker process for future incidents, Masters replied he simply could not comment.
“Having spent three years not commenting, I’m not going to start now,” he said. Masters added that, stepping aside from that specific case, any regulator wants its judicial system to be efficient and work swiftly.
