The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned Manchester City’s two-year ban from European football.
The Premier League side will now play in the competition next season.
City were found to have committed ‘’serious breaches’’ of club licensing and financial fair play regulations in February.
The independent adjudicatory chamber of the Club Financial Control Body (CFCB), UEFA’s financial monitor, said it found Manchester City had broken the rules by ‘’overstating its sponsorship revenue in its accounts and in the break-even information submitted to UEFA from 2012 to 2016’’, adding that the club ’’failed to cooperate in the investigation’’.
In addition to the ban, CFCB also fined City €30Million (£27.2M).
This was after a German Newspaper Del Spiegel published leaked documents in 2018 alleging city had inflated the value of the sponsorship deal, misleading UEFA.
City however denied the breaches, saying they were untrue.
The CAS held the hearing for three days last month via video-conferencing due to the Covid-19 restrictions. The hearing was not open to the public.
The CAS statement read: ”Manchester City FC did not disguise equity funding as sponsorship contributions but did fail to cooperate with UEFA authorities.”
City must pay a reduced fine of €10M for failing to assist UEFA in its investigations.
”The CAS award emphasized that most of the alleged breaches reported by the adjudicatory chamber of the CFCB were either not established or time barred,” said the CAS.
”As the charges with respect to any dishonest concealment of equity funding were clearly more significant violations than obstructing the CFCB’s investigations, it was not appropriate to impose a ban in participating in UEFA’s club competitions for MCFC’s failure to cooperate with CFCB’s investigations alone.”
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