Premier League ready U-turn in shock Man City twist – Stefan Borson
Premier League officials are looking to revert back to the 2021 associated party transactions (APT) rules after scheduling a vote in the Manchester City case.
That is the view of former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson, who exclusively told Football Insider it’s so far unclear whether the English champions will agree with the proposed changes.
Man City took legal action against the Premier League regarding the APT rules currently in place at an arbitration hearing in June.
Both sides have claimed a victory in the case after the arbitration panel’s decision was published last month, where two aspects of the rules were deemed to be unlawful.
The Times reported on 6 November the Premier League has issued proposed amendments to the APT rules that could open the door for top-flight clubs to agree significantly more lucrative sponsorship deals.
The 20 member clubs will meet on 22 November to vote on the new proposals.
Man City might not agree with Premier League’s proposal
“It’s not a huge surprise in terms of the changes proposed,” Borson told Football Insider.
“What we know is there is going to be a vote on 22 November to consider effectively changes that will take us back to the original 2021 associated party rules.
“It will effectively unwind those changes that have been made in 2024 that the tribunal deemed to be unlawful.
“The interesting part of it is we don’t yet know if any additional questions were put to the tribunal in terms of whether the fix can be as proposed here by the Premier League.
“What we have got here from the Premier League is pretty much what they were going to do in their original press release, which is ‘We the Premier League think that all we need to do is make some pretty simple changes to the rules that delete certain words, that add back certain words that were deleted in February and we all go on like nothing has happened. We add in this whole point about shareholder loans and that deals with the tribunal’s decision’.
“What we don’t know is whether City are in agreement with this because, if you remember, on the eve of the public announcement that was made by the Premier League about the decision, City wrote to all the Premier League clubs and said ‘Hang on a minute, we don’t agree that is a suitable fix for what’s been decided by the tribunal and, as a minimum, we expect additional questions to be put back to the tribunal’.
“We don’t know whether the tribunal has been asked any additional questions, whether the clubs and the Premier League have made submissions to the tribunal either in writing or in person and we don’t know if the tribunal has made any decision.”
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