Man City vs Premier League case broken down by legal expert as ruling impacts Liverpool

Manchester City and the ’s case over with City claiming to have were deemed unlawful.

, owned by Abu Dhabi-backed City Football Group, saw their complaints upheld regarding the Premier League’s associated party transactions (APT) rules. The regulations, which are aimed at ensuring sponsorship deals with companies linked to club’s owners are not inflated, were deemed unlawful by a tribunal.

Despite the findings, the Premier League has also considered the verdict a victory after the tribunal rejected the majority of Manchester City’s challenges and “endorsed the overall objectives, framework and decision-making of the APT system". The case is not directly linked to the 115 Premier League charges against City for allegedly breaching its financial regulations, which the club vehemently deny.

However, the outcome will leave a mark on Liverpool and fellow clubs including Arsenal and Manchester United, who were said to have supported the Premier League’s stance. While the affects of the verdict will become clearer over time, sports lawyer Nick De Marco broke down the case on social media.

Writing on X, De Marco explained: “Today we have finally been able to read the written reasons in the MCFC v PL arbitration about the legality of the PL’s Associated Party Transaction Rules (‘APT’) and their application.

“As is often the case with lawyers, both sides have declared victory. The truth is somewhere in between, with each side winning on different issues. The fact, however, that parts of the PL’s APT Rules have been declared unlawful is significant,” he wrote.

“Just a few days after the European Court found parts of FIFA’s RSTP were unlawful, and coming not long after the ESL (European Super League) case in Europe (finding FIFA and UEFA rules to be unlawful), and the decision of an FA Rule Arbitral Tribunal that The FIFA and FA’s cap on football agents fees was unlawful, the case represents another example of the increasing tendency of courts and tribunals to hold sports regulators to closer scrutiny than has previously been the case the – in particular where economic activity is involved and where issues of freedom of movement and competition law arise. In addition, some of MCFC’s ‘wins’ in the APT case were based on English public law principles of procedural fairness.”

De Marco continued: “All that I can say is we are living in the most exciting time for sports law. I have never myself been one to celebrate the greater commercialisation and therefore legalisation of sport and its regulation, but it is a real fact of life and economic activity, such that this tendency for greater scrutiny of sports regulation is inevitable.

“It does perhaps also lend further support to the calls for greater independence, and transparency, in the regulation of sport.”