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According to the public regulatory and supervisory authority for protection and sustainability in English football, it would be possible to force the owners of Manchester City to step down. However, an investigation would first have to be carried out.
As a last resort, Manchester City’s owners could apparently be forced by the state to sell the top English club in the wake of the financial scandal. The Independent Football Regulation (IFR) – the public regulatory and supervisory body for protection and sustainability in English football – has the relevant decision-making powers, explained IFR chairman David Kogan on the podcast “The Rest is Football”.
Should the IFR, in the course of an investigation into a club’s owner or owners, come to the conclusion “that the club is being run in a manner that is neither appropriate nor fair, nor conducted with the necessary integrity, we have the absolute power to require owners to withdraw from a club”, said Kogan. When asked, the head of the authority ruled out the possibility that club owners could defy his organisation’s request.
Manchester City has been under suspicion for years of breaching numerous financial regulations at both national and international level. At the end of September, the English Premier League found its runners-up guilty of having committed massive breaches of financial regulations in around 100 instances between 2009 and 2018.
Man City rejects the allegations
The club, owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, steadfastly rejects all allegations. Accordingly, Man City lodged an appeal against the league’s decision within the stipulated time limit.
As things stand, potential sanctions for the former Champions League winners in the event of a final conviction include heavy fines, as well as a points deduction or even forced relegation. Prior to Kogan’s statements, a forced sale had not been a subject of heated debate.
Sheikh Mansour bought Manchester City in 2008 for the equivalent of around 200 million euros. After 18 years and around two billion euros spent on transfers, Forbes magazine estimated the club’s value at 4.9 billion euros last summer.
