Owner of Manchester City, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan has said he’d “rather spend £30m on the 50 best lawyers” and sue UEFA “for the next ten years” than accept their punishment.
The Cityzens were found guilty by UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) of falsely inflating their sponsorship revenues when submitting accounts as part of the FFP compliance process.
And that means they will now be suspended from any UEFA European competition for the next two seasons as well as being hit in the pocket.
The guilty verdict follows an investigation that was triggered after German magazine Der Spiegel “leaked” emails and documents in November 2018.
The club have vowed to fight the verdict and will take it to the “Court of Arbitration for Sport at the earliest opportunity” in order to get it overturned.
However, it was upon the emergence of those leaked emails that the billionaire’s determination to fight European football’s governing body emerged.
SEE ALSO | Nigeria U17 Captain Samson Tijani Signs For RB Salzburg
One of the emails claim, a club lawyer, Simon Cliff stated that the chairman said in the earlier FFP investigation “he would rather spend £30m on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue them for the next 10 years.”
This article was most recently revised and updated 5 years ago
