A financial adviser who worked for Manchester City has suggested his former club will soon have “concerns” as the wait for an official verdict on the 155 charges case continues.
Stefan Borson, who advised City between 2002 and 2007 – meaning he was not involved with the club during the alleged nine-year period in which they committed the financial breaches – has given an insight into the case.
If you’re unaware of the situation then let us give you a brief lowdown. City were charged with 115 breaches of financial rules by the Premier League in February 2023, with a small number of the charges relating to UEFA.
City were establishing themselves as one of Europe’s top competitors during that period, which started in 2009 and went on until 2018, spending around €1.44bn on new players, according to figures from Transfermarkt.
The club have denied any wrongdoing and claim they have an “irrefutable body of evidence” that will prove them innocent.
A private hearing was held in December but a verdict has not been reached, with suggestions that a timeframe between the hearing and the judgment would take months given the sheer volume of information involved.
As the wait for an official verdict continues, Borson has explained why City will ‘start to become concerned’ if the case continues to drag on.
Speaking to Football Insider, he began: “I would work on the general understanding that sooner is better for City.
“Clearly, as we get further into the deliberation period, or the drafting period, then you start to think that the extent of the judgment needs to be particularly carefully drafted to ensure that there are no challenges to very serious findings.
“Now, I don’t think we’re in that period yet, however, because I think that we are still in the relatively early stages of when we would expect a decision of a case of this magnitude.
“And furthermore, we don’t know the details of the diaries of the panel who are deliberating, so it may well have always been planned that they would have to take some time because it’s perfectly possible, for example, that they went straight into other work in the early part of this year.
“It may be that those were other matters that have only just been completed, so the decision was always going to take probably until at the earliest April. We are now almost in July. I do think we are getting into the period where City will start to have some concerns about where the decision is.”
City have been charged with 115 alleged breaches of financial rules. Image credit: Getty
Borson added: “We are in that sort of early period still, but I think it will switch quite quickly into an area of concern for the club if it drags on closer to the start of the season.”
What are Manchester City’s potential punishments if found guilty?
Should City be found guilty of any of the alleged breaches, their punishment will be based upon the exact breaches, with fines or points deductions being reportedly seen as the most likely punishments.
Last year, The Times claimed that a previous case involving Swindon Town could be used as a ‘legal precedent’ if required – though the cases have significant dissimilarities.
In the 1989/90 season, the Robins were hit with 35 charges relating to illegal payments. The case was postponed until after that season’s Second Division play-offs – during which Swindon earned promotion to the First Division.
The club would admit 36 charges and were relegated two divisions to the Third Division, reduced to one relegation upon appeal.
But football finance expert Kieran Maguire has claimed that the Premier League cannot administratively relegate City from the Premier League if found guilty as they do not control the EFL.
Speaking to the Manchester Evening News in March, he explained: “The Premier League doesn’t control the EFL, so therefore the commission would have to set a tariff – a punishment that will be so severe in terms of points deductions that it would effectively guarantee relegation.
“But they can’t do what we saw with Rangers and the SPFL and relegate them to League Two or similar.”
