The ban that would have kept Manchester City out of the Champions League for two years has been overturned.
Manchester City’s appeal against their two-year ban from European competition handed down by UEFA in February has been upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. CAS has also reduced City’s fine from 30m euros to 10m.
CAS verdict read: “The CAS award emphasised that most of the alleged breaches reported by the Adjudicatory Chamber of the UEFA Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) were either not established or time-barred.
“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 on participating in UEFA’s club competitions for MCFC’s failure to cooperate with the CFCB’s investigations alone.
“However, considering i) the financial resources of MCFC; ii) the importance of the cooperation of clubs in investigations conducted by the CFCB, because of its limited investigative means; and iii) MCFC’s disregard of such principle and its obstruction of the investigations, the CAS panel found that a significant fine should be imposed on MCFC and considered it appropriate to reduce UEFA’s initial fine by two-thirds, i.e. to the amount of EUR 10 million.”
Earlier, Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, had said he is confident the club’s European ban will be overturned.
