Man City’s Champions League ban lifted after CAS appeal

Man City's Champions League ban lifted after CAS appeal

Manchester City’s two-year Champions League ban has been overturned after a successful appeal.

Earlier this season, the Premier League giants were handed a ban and a fine by UEFA for breaching the financial fairplay rules.

However, the English club chose to appeal their verdict at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

CAS has now ruled in Manchester City’s favour and the ban has been overturned. However, the Premier League side will still have to pay a fine.

That said, the fine has been reduced from €30m to €10m.

Manchester City can now compete in the Champions League next season. It will be interesting to see how UEFA react to his verdict from CAS now. 

Also, this could spell the end of FFP regulations as the rich clubs will now look to bypass the rules with their financial resources.

CAS’s ruling explains that Manchester City might have breached the rules but those instances happened years ago and therefore they cannot be punished for that now. 

Manchester City’s supposed offences are time-barred now. 

CAS’s verdict read: “The CAS award emphasised that most of the alleged breaches reported by the Adjudicatory Chamber of the UEFA Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) were either not established or time-barred. 

“As the charges with respect to any dishonest concealment of equity funding were clearly more significant violations than obstructing the CFCB’s investigations, it was not appropriate to impose a ban on participating in UEFA’s club competitions for MCFC’s failure to cooperate with the CFCB’s investigations alone.

“However, considering i) the financial resources of MCFC; ii) the importance of the cooperation of clubs in investigations conducted by the CFCB, because of its limited investigative means; and iii) MCFC’s disregard of such principle and its obstruction of the investigations, the CAS panel found that a significant fine should be imposed on MCFC and considered it appropriate to reduce UEFA’s initial fine by two-thirds, i.e. to the amount of EUR 10 million.”