Manchester City
In a recent development in the sports world, the Premier League has addressed Manchester City’s challenge against the APT rules. Although City did not achieve major success in their challenge, the Premier League announced that the tribunal has supported the foundational principles of these rules.
Leaf said “It’s hard to argue that Man City haven’t won. Maybe you’d say they’ve won on penalties after extra time, because quite conceivably the Premier League can point to a lot of the points in this decision that support the development of its rules, and the rules themselves. Where we’ve ended up is that actually we’re likely to see a broader set of rules (to include shareholder loans). This is one of the main areas where the Premier League was successful the panel did quite conclusively say that having these types of (APT) rules in place is lawful. It shouldn’t change the value of these deals, but it maybe makes it slightly easier for the clubs to try to challenge a Premier League finding that a deal was not undertaken at fair market value, because clubs will now effectively see the Premier League’s ‘working-out’ at an earlier stage in the process. Including shareholder loans could create ‘significant’ issues for clubs from a tax and other financial perspective. What this shows is that participants in the world of sport are increasingly not afraid to take on governing bodies and rights-holders.”
