Football regulator can force Manchester City owners to sell, its chair says

The independent football regulator could force Manchester City’s owners to sell the club if the verdict against it is upheld on appeal. The regulator’s chair, David Kogan, says the body has “absolute power” to act in that situation, while stressing that no decision has been made at this stage.

An independent commission found Manchester City guilty of circumventing Premier League rules. It concluded that the club had set up sham commercial arrangements to increase revenue or reduce costs by more than £900m over nine seasons. The commission also found concerted efforts to obstruct the Premier League’s investigation into those arrangements.

Manchester City has appealed, saying the verdict “contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe”. The appeal is therefore central to the issue: the power Kogan described depends on the outcome of the case and is not an announcement of a sale or action already under way.

Asked about possible action by his organisation while the appeal is ongoing, Kogan said it was premature to discuss. He nevertheless confirmed that the regulator could ask the club’s owner, Sheikh Mansour, to step away if that were considered appropriate. “We have the power to ask an owner to step away from a club if we believe that they run a club in a way that is neither fit, fair or done with propriety,” he said.

Asked whether an owner could refuse to divest, Kogan replied: “No, no, no. We’ve got absolute power to do so.” He also warned that deciding whether to launch the regulator’s own investigation before all the questions had been answered would be “a colossal mistake”.

Amid fears that the case could complicate relations between the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, Kogan has said he would leave his post if politics affected any IFR inquiry into City.