Man City accuse Premier League of illegally favouring Arsenal | OneFootball

Manchester City have accused the Premier League's amended associated party transaction (APT) rules of favouring clubs that have benefitted from unscrutinised loans from their owners, explicitly naming Arsenal as one of four teams to have gained an unfair advantage.

The Premier League's APT rules were introduced in 2021 to ensure that any commercial deals between a club and an "associated party" were conducted at "fair market value". City took England's top flight to court in June 2024, challenging the legal validity of these regulations shortly after they were twice blocked from completing wide-ranging sponsorship agreements with Etihad - a company which has links to City's Abu Dhabi-based owners.

The initial verdict from an independent tribunal found that there was some truth to City's argument but the Premier League framed their ruling as nothing more than the need to tweak a "small number of discrete elements". Premier League clubs voted through these amended rules in a little more than 30 minutes last November.

A final decision from the tribunal declared the original APT rules as "void and unenforceable" in February, which represented a huge legal win for City. As the serial champions pointed out in a statement released to the Daily Mail and The Times on Friday: "This voidness means that the amendments are themselves void, because it is not legally possible to amend rules that are themselves void."

City's main point of argument against the APT rules relates to the fact that shareholder loans were not subjected to the same scrutiny as other commercial deals. This common practice, which typically saw a wealthy owner lend their own club hundreds of millions of pounds at negligible interest rates, helped several clubs avoid recording losses which would have otherwise seen them break the Premier League's strict profit and sustainability regulations (PSR).

This relaxed view of favourable inter-club transactions was addressed in the amendments made by Premier League clubs back in November. Teams were given 50 days to convert shareholder loans into equity spending. City aren't impressed with this compromise either.

The club claim that the existing APT rules "fail to meet the requirements of transparency, objectivity, precision and proportionality... and are liable to distort competition".

Arsenal, Brighton, Everton and Leicester City are all named by Manchester City as clubs that have unfairly benefitted from shareholder investment. The Premier League champions go so far as to list how much each team banked through this form of financing which - it should be stressed - was entirely in line with the regulations that existed at the time.

City argue that all clubs should revert to the practices which existed before any APT rules were introduced in 2021 while new regulations are drawn up.

This ongoing feud is entirely separate from the 130 financial breaches City have been accused of by the Premier League. However, the legals costs incurred by England's top flight while fighting this APT battle will only eat into the budget available for future court cases.