Manchester City will compete in next season’s UEFA Champions League after their ban was overturned by Court of Arbitration for Sport.
UEFA banned Manchester City from competing in Europe for two years and fined them 30m euros, in February for breaching Financial Fair Play regulations.
However, the ban has been lifted with the fine reduced to 10m euros following a successful appeal.
A statement from CAS said: “The CAS award emphasized that most of the alleged breaches reported by the Adjudicatory Chamber of the CFCBwere either not established or time-barred.Asthe 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 CASPanel found that a significant fine should be imposed on MCFC and considered it appropriate to reduce UEFA’s initial fine by 2/3, i.e. to the amount of EUR 10 million.”
