Manchester City chief executive hits out at Uefa over Champions League ban
Uefa handed out a two-year Champions League ban and €30m fine last Friday to the Premier League champions
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Your support makes all the difference.Manchester City CEO Ferran Soriano insists Uefa‘s Financial Fair Play (FFP) allegations, which have seen the Premier League champions handed a two-year Champions League ban, are “false” and “about politics”.
Uefa ruled last Friday that City had made “serious breaches” of their FFP regulations and failed to cooperate during the investigation, with the hefty ban and €30m (£25m) fine dished out to the Etihad club.
City strenuously deny the allegations though and have vowed to fight them at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and Soriano has now spoken on camera about the ban for the first time.
“Well the most important thing I have to say today is that the allegations are not true. They are simply not true,” Soriano told the club’s official website.
“We provided the evidence but in the end this FFP Investigatory Chamber relied more on out of context stolen emails than all the other evidence we provided of what actually happened and I think it is normal that we feel like we feel.
“Ultimately based on our experience and our perception this seems to be less about justice and more about politics.”
City were accused by Uefa of ”overstating its sponsorship revenue in its accounts and in the break-even information submitted to UEFA between 2012 and 2016”.
But Soriano has dismissed the notion of inflating sponsorship or leaning on any undeclared financial support from the Abu Dhabi United Group, who have a majority stake in City Football Group.
“The owner has not put money in this club that has not been properly declared. We are a sustainable football club, we are profitable, we don’t have debt, our accounts have been scrutinized many times, by auditors, by regulators, by investors and this is perfectly clear,” he added.
“We are looking for an early resolution obviously through a thorough process and a fair process so my best hope is that this will be finished before the beginning of the summer and until then for us, it is business as usual.”
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