Manchester City could be sued by players for lost earnings over 115 charges guilty verdict

The ramifications of Manchester City’s mass guilty verdict in the 115 charges case could extend to being sued for compensation by players from rival teams, say leading sports lawyers. City are facing a devastating fallout after being found guilty, pending an appeal, of all but one of the charges of breaching financial rules over a nine-year period brought by the Premier League. Rival clubs Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur have already served notice of possible claims for lost prize money as a result of City’s alleged cheating. Players from those and other teams could also bring legal action for financial harm suffered from missing out on bonuses for winning the title or qualifying for the Champions League. Discussing the possibility of current City players such as Erling Haaland and Enzo Fernandez seeking to break contracts if City were relegated, Three Points Law co-founder Simon Leaf told City AM: “I think it is highly unlikely that current players would have an automatic right to terminate contracts if the club were relegated.  “What’s more interesting from a player perspective is the potential for not just disgruntled clubs to bring claims against City but also for players to do the same – for example, missed bonuses for winning titles or Champions League qualification. I think it will be harder for players from relegated clubs to bring claims but not impossible.” Burnley’s successful compensation claim against Everton, itself pending an appeal, earlier this year is considered to have opened the floodgates for similar legal action where financial breaches of Premier League rules have been established. Everton were ordered to pay Burnley £35m after the Clarets argued they had been deprived a fair chance at avoiding relegation in a season when Everton broke spending rules. “The original decision was seen to very much lower the bar when it came to proving causation and therefore the ability of clubs that have been impacted by Manchester City’s breaches to believe that they could also be entitled to significant sums,” added Leaf, who co-wrote the chapter on financial regulation in leading textbook Football and the Law. “This is just the end of the beginning, I suspect this will run and run for the coming weeks, months and potentially years.” Manchester City’s punishment has not yet been handed down and is expected to follow after their appeal has been heard by a different independent commission.  They may take encouragement from the leniency with which Chelsea were treated, despite admitting making off-book payments for many years under the previous ownership, in part because they argued they would not have exceeded prescribed limits on losses.  “The critical thing that Manchester City will be trying to do is to show that the breaches, whilst significant, would not have pushed the club over the upper loss threshold (i.e. the £105m) that Chelsea were able to stay within despite years of flagrant breaches,” Leaf said. The charges against City are the most serious levelled at a club during the Premier League era and call into question not just the three Premier League titles won during the 2009-18 period but also their subsequent domestic and European successes. Among the allegations is City’s Abu Dhabi ownership effectively topped up former manager Roberto Mancini’s salary via a consultancy contract with a UAE club. Mancini, now Italy head coach, dismissed it as “their issue, not mine” when asked about it on Sunday.  “It’s not an issue that concerns me. It’s nothing new because this matter has been discussed for the last four or five years,” he said. “Manchester City has not been found guilty [sic], and the alleged double contract is not my concern.”