A former financial advisor to Manchester City has refuted claims that the Premier League club’s legal bill in their 115 charges case has topped £200million.
The Premier League hit Man City with 115 charges in February 2023 for allegedly breaching financial fair play (FFP) rules over a nine-year period between 2009 and 2018.
The actual number of charges is reportedly 130, with the Cityzens threatened by a variety of punishments such as a points deduction, titles stripped, or even expulsion from the top flight.
The Premier League says Man City broke the rules over nine seasons by allegedly failing to provide accurate financial information. They also allege City did not comply with UEFA’s FFP rules over a five-year period.
A report from The Times‘ financial expert Martyn Ziegler claimed that the cost during the investigation has topped £200m for the club and the league.
Top lawyers are said to have been charging ‘thousands of pounds an hour’, with one unnamed club chief telling the newspaper: “The sums involved are eye-watering. And the money that is going to the lawyers is money that could have gone to the clubs.”
That ‘eye-watering’ figure has been described as “completely ridiculous” by Stefan Borson, a former financial advisor to the Manchester giants.
Borson believes the legal bill is closer to between £20-25m “on each side”, which is still a “significant” amount of money.
“Well, it won’t be £200million,” the financial expert told Football Insider.
“That’s completely ridiculous, but it is significant. There are big question marks over the overall legal spend at the Premier League.
“I did a piece analysing the last few years of their operating expenses, which include the legal costs, and they’re very significant.
“They have grown aggressively over the last few years, so I think it is true that there’s been big legal spend since kind of two or three years ago. I think sort of before Covid, it was fairly modest, and it seems to have gone crazy in the period after.
“But then again, the organisation is growing. They are doing more things in house. On top of that, they have got all of these cases.
“There’s no way the City case is £200million, but obviously it will be very significant. I would think the total costs would be something like maybe £20-25million on each side. I don’t think there’ll be a big discrepancy.
“What we’ve seen previously is the Premier League have been outspending the clubs by a lot, so their fees have been much bigger than the clubs.
“They have struggled to recover those fees from Everton and Nottingham Forest, even though they obviously won the cases.
“What’s happened is when they’ve gone to the independent commissions to try and reclaim their costs, the independent commissions have effectively said you’re spending too much, you’re over complicating these cases, and you need to not necessarily use cheaper lawyers but we’re not asking Everton and Nottingham Forest to pay for your very expensive lawyers.”