The Premier League faces a ‘crushing blow’ amid their legal battle with Manchester City over their 115+ alleged breaches of financial fair play.
An independent hearing into the Citizens’ alleged breaches of financial fair play finished in mid-December, and with a verdict expected imminently a number of sanctions have been touted, including points penalties, transfer embargoes, stripping titles and even complete expulsion from the Premier League.
City have claimed two legal wins over the Premier League, with Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules deemed ‘null and void’ in the most recent ‘significant’ victory for the club.
But they will be sweating the reportedly imminent outcome of the FFP hearing despite insisting on their innocence throughout proceedings.
Both Everton and Nottingham Forest were docked points in 2023/2024 for breaking Profit and Sustainability (PSR) rules, and City look set to be hit considerably harder if they’re found guilty as they face well over 100 charges.
Former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson exclusively told Football Insider more than £100million of the Premier League’s expenses last season were likely legal fees.
He insisted that figure could be set to rise again in 2024-25 due to the ongoing legal battles in what the outlet described as a ‘crushing blow’ for the Premier League.
He told Football Insider: “It’s pretty scary numbers really when you look at it because I would think there was in excess of £100million of external legal spend by the Premier League.
“If it’s £200million on the administrative costs because, if you look at the historic pattern and what was spent historically, it’s hard to see how that could have been less than £100million just on the legal side.
“Now, if you break down 2024-25 and compare it to what was going on last year, last year may have had a lot of the preparation for a lot of the stuff that’s happened this year, so that may well have an impact. But generally, there’s just an enormous amount of stuff that’s gone on this year since 31 July.
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“You have had City’s 115 charges case actually start and happen over three months. That would have been extraordinarily expensive because they had a team of about eight barristers as well as the firm acting for them.
“They had the associated party transaction saga. The actual hearing took place in June, so far that’s in last year, but then they have APT 2 up and running. It will happen sometime before July.
“They had the reaction to APT 1, so dealing with all of the fallout from it. We had the changes of all the drafting. You have got this whole new regime of PSR that they’re trying to bring in.
“Then you’ve got PSR cases, or investigations anyway. You had the Everton case that was dropped in January. We know the Chelsea investigation so far.
“There are loads of things going on on this side of things, so there is a very good chance that it’s going to be even more expensive next year.”
