Mixed verdict delivered in Manchester City's AP case against he Premier League

It might be of interest to our prospective owners that Manchester City have had some of their complaints upheld, in relation to the Associated Party Transaction rules (APT). Two aspects of the APT rules were deemed unlawful by a tribunal.

The tribunal ruled that shareholder loans should not be excluded from the scope of APT rules and that some amendments made in February by the Premier League should not be retained.

Interestingly, Everton, Chelsea and Newcastle acted as witnesses for Manchester City, whilst witnesses for the Premier League included, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool, Brighton and West Ham.

The Premier League says the tribunal rejected the majority of Manchester City's challenges and 'endorsed the overall, framework and decision-making of the APT system'.
Source: BBC

As Brian above alludes, the outcome of the Manchester City case against APT, may prove detrimental to Everton, as it has the largest debt to its ownership, compared with the other Premier League clubs.

There is a table relating to this in the link below.

Man City - Victory?

Matt Lawton, who broke the story for The Times on Monday later joined talkSPORT and admitted the is 'civil war' between the Premier League and its clubs, and between some of the clubs themselves.

“Right now the Premier League is in civil war," he told Hawksbee and Jacobs.

"It's very messy, this is not a good place.

“While we're enjoying watching the football on a Saturday and Sunday, there's a lot of friction here.

“Eight or nine clubs gave evidence in this particular case in support of the Premier League. The clubs are divided.

“It's a messy situation and the consequences of this are the shareholder loans - if you are Arsenal with over 200 million quid worth of shareholder loans this is a worrying development.”

Fred, the last paragraph in your report is indeed a worry:

“It's a messy situation and the consequences of this are the shareholder loans – if you are Arsenal with over £200 million worth of shareholder loans, this is a worrying development.”

Everton can double Arsenal's £200M, can't they?

I struggle to see that you can retrospectively include shareholder loans into the current or past PSR calculations. It can only be included into the future calculations once everyone understands that point.

I also struggle to see why interest should be included, when it's not been charged. This is a commercial decision not for the Premier League to find on.

Any club worth its salt will just recategorise as junior equity in any case.

The commercial point that Man City can add any commercial details that don't have a fair value, just means that football will become a state controlled game.

Graham,

According to the table that was supplied to Talksport by Swiss Ramble, at the end of the 2022-23 season, Everton had £451M worth of shareholder loans. Things may have improved since or some loans may have been moved, but it is worrying.

I imagine Paul The Esk will have something to write about this in the coming days.

Ian,

Several Premier League clubs disappointed by the ruling, including Arsenal, Bournemouth, Liverpool and West Ham.

The Premier League maintain rules won't dramatically change, but Shareholder loans will now be factored in, which could affect some of the heavier borrowers using this method.

This type of lending is interest-free but interest rates may now be applied for PSR purposes.
Source: Ben Jacobs via 'X'

As with most of these type of things, we won't know how it will pan out, but I won't be happy until Friedkin are the new owners and none of this 'civil war' nonsense prevents that from happening.

Fred, that £451M is all loans from Moshiri I believe and there has been no change – it's well documented that he's unlikely to see any of it back.

I agree with Ian though, I don't see that this decision leads directly to our loan number being retrospectively added.

The Premier League's consistent failures regarding governance and clarity of rules is leading to mayhem.

I hope Paul the Esk doesn't write about it...

I think this links into the hearings last year. I thought our argument was that the loans we had taken out were for day-to-day running costs but we wanted to charge them against the stadium costs arguing that we had used the interest-free shareholder loans for stadium costs.

The Premier League refused that… so, if the goalposts have been moved, doesn't that now need to go to VAR?

According to Fraser Watson of the Daily Express:

The Premier League have reportedly invited all 20 clubs to an emergency meeting to discuss needing to change its rules following the outcome of Manchester City's tribunal.

A number of City's complaints were upheld, most critically in relation to Associated Party Transaction (APT).

The club's lawyers successfully argued that interest-free loans from shareholders to clubs needed to be included in APT regulations, leaving a number of clubs now in danger of breaching Profit and Sustainability Rules.

Arsenal are one club now set to face ramifications. They are said to have taken about £200m in shareholder loans to boost transfer market spending, and now face the prospect of having to quickly balance their books.

Now, top-flight bosses are trying to urgently arrange a meeting with all 20 of its clubs present next week. They're expected to discuss the extent to which it will need to change rules and regulations as a consequence of the sponsorship judgment.

From what I have read today, 19 out of the 20 clubs, including Manchester City, voted in February 2024, to keep shareholders loans out of APT, but today's decision seems to have opened the door to at the very least include market value interest rates as part of the calculation for PSR, apparently a 5% rate on Everton's current loans would amount to circa £20m, if that was somehow backdated - which I don't think it would be - it would cause a great difficulty for the club.

Four letter words used to upset lots of people but three letter acronyms are the bane of all of our lives, PSR, VAR, APT, VAT, PFI the list goes on! Enjoyment of the sport RIP (LOL)

TLA's, Fred ;-)

I must be rather dense this morning, but why would Man City argue FOR including interest free loans as part of any ATP and by default PSR? Surely they would be against it?

If only the Premier League would put as much energy into improving the standard of refereeing. In "civil war" or does it just need the dog to stop the tail wagging it?