4 Premier League clubs named who’ve reserved right to seek compensation from Manchester City

Last week, we brought you news (see below) that four Premier League clubs had lodged legal notices, reserving the right to seek compensation, if Manchester City are found guilty of serious charges amongst the 115 alleged breaches of Premier League financial rules.

The Times reporting that they were advised to take this step of formally registering possible compensation claims via arbitration, before a potential statute of limitations deadline.

The charges against Manchester City are still being heard by an independent regulatory commission.

With the outcome not expected until early in 2025.

Now on Wednesday (13 November 2024), The Times have followed up their original exclusive with another, as they have named the for Premier League clubs who have reserved the right to seek compensation against Manchester City, if the charges stick.

No surprise that the four Premier League clubs, according to The Times exclusive, are Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham and Manchester United.

The Times report today goes on to explain:

‘Chelsea are not believed to have lodged a legal notice relating to compensation. They have their own Premier League investigation to contend with after they self-reported alleged irregular payments during the Roman Abramovich era. That could also lead to compensation claims from rivals but there is no looming deadline for the case.’

The Premier League investigation into Chelsea did not become public until a story appeared in The Times in June 2023, so rival clubs should have until June 2029 to file any compensation notices.

Alleged irregular payments between 2012 and 2019 are under investigation, including those connected to the transfers of Willian, Samuel Eto’o and Eden Hazard. The investigation was opened after the Todd Boehly/Clearlake consortium bought the club in May 2022 and reported the payments to the league and Uefa.’

The Mag report – 6 November 2024:

Manchester City are currently having their Premier League case heard, with 115 alleged breaches of the rules.

The alleged breaches include not providing accurate financial information for nine different seasons.

As well as not providing full details of players’ remuneration over six seasons from 2010-11 to 2015-16, also not providing full details of manager Roberto Mancini’s pay over the four seasons he was at the club from 2009 to 2013.

If found guilty of some or all of these alleged breaches, we await to see what the potential punishment(s) would be. With everything from significant fines, right through to points deductions and even relegation, as possibilities.

However, The Times has now reported that things could get even worse for Manchester City if breaches of the rules are shown to have occurred.

A number of Premier League clubs have now reserved the right to seek compensation against Manchester City.

Manchester City were eventually charged with the 115 alleged breaches in February 2023. However, it was back in 2018 when German publication Der Spiegel had the exclusive on the leaked documents, from which the charges of alleged breaches eventually came from.

Their legal team had advised the Premier League clubs to now reserve their right to seek compensation against Manchester City, as it was felt that if they didn’t do so by early November 2024, it was a possibility that a six-year limitation period for legal claims could potentially prevent them doing so. If not now registering that, the reserving of their right to seek compensation if/when Manchester City is found to be guilty.

With them also now registering three defeats in a row on the pitch this past week, no doubt there will be much speculation as to whether Manchester City is seeing their domination of recent times on and off the pitch finally crumbling.

The Times report – 5 November 2024:

‘A number of Premier League clubs have reserved the right to seek compensation against Manchester City over the club’s 115 alleged rule breaches before a deadline on Tuesday.

The action has been advised by lawyers even before the outcome of the case as there is a potential six-year statute of limitation period which dates back to November 5, 2018 when a German website first published the Football Leaks documents.

If the serious charges against City are found proven, clubs could claim for loss of income for missing out on the league title or European competitions over the course of several seasons, which could total hundreds of millions of pounds.

Clubs cannot sue each other through the courts under Premier League rules but they can do so through arbitration under Rule X.

Lawyers are understood to have advised clubs that if they waited until the outcome of the hearing into the 115 alleged rule breaches then there would be a risk any compensation claim could be deemed to be out of time.’