football
Manchester City refusing to co-operate with FFP investigation
Martyn Ziegler, Chief Sports Reporter
January 17 2019, 12:01am, The Times
City believe the internal emails were taken out of contextPA
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Manchester City have refused to respond to Uefa investigators over allegations that they misled financial regulators over the club’s income, on the grounds that the accusations are based on hacked emails.
Uefa’s independent Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) is investigating leaked emails which appear to show £59.5 million of sponsorship money that was supposed to come from the Etihad airline in 2015 was paid by their owners Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG).
The CFCB approached City for their response to the allegations and emails published by
Der Spiegel, the German magazine, from the Football Leaks cache of documents. The club, however, are understood to have declined to provide any explanation and instead pointed out in a written response the claims arose from internal emails which they say were “hacked or stolen”.
City did not challenge the authenticity of the emails but have previously said they were taken out of context.
Yves Leterme, the head of the CFCB and a former Belgian prime minister, said last month that City may face “the heaviest punishment” — a Champions League ban — as a result of the case if it is proved that the club provided misleading information to ensure that they complied with Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules. The regulations were established to prevent clubs spending more than they earn in pursuit of success and getting into problems.
The Times revealed last month that City executives could also face personal sanctions over the allegations.
The CFCB will now have to decide whether to open a formal case against the club or any of their officials. The body’s enforcement of FFP rules relies on clubs providing truthful information about their finances.
City were fined £48million in 2014 for spending more than the FFP rules permitted, although £32 million of that was suspended so the club ended up paying only £16 million. Senior Uefa figures believe that a second offence, especially if figures are proved to have been manipulated, would have to carry sporting sanctions.
The internal emails involved Simon Pearce, an Australian who is a director of Manchester City Ltd and special adviser to the City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, and Jorge Chumillas, who was the City Football Group’s chief financial officer in 2015 and whose Linkedin profile says that he still works for the group.
One email from Chumillas to Pearce, referring to the Etihad sponsorship deal worth £67.5million annually, stated: “Please note that out of those 67.5m pounds, 8m pounds should be funded directly by Etihad and 59.5 by ADUG.”
City are furious with the EFL after it refused to put the Checkatrade Trophy match between their under-21 side and Sunderland back a week. City Under-21 face Sunderland in the quarter-finals of the competition next Tuesday, only 24 hours before the club’s first team take on Burton Albion in the semi-final of the Carabao Cup.
Given that City are almost certainly through to the final after defeating Burton, the League One club, 9-0 in the first leg, manager Pep Guardiola planned to play some under-21 players.
An EFL spokesperson said it had “a significant amount of sympathy with the position outlined by Manchester City” but that the scheduling of the match “was made after full consideration of the representations of both clubs, along with enquiries of our own.”
The spokesman added: “The EFL is committed to delivering valuable playing opportunities for young players and would have assisted, if it had been practically possible.”
