City set to appeal disastrous guilty verdict
 

Inside Track

Inside Track

 

By Aadi Nair, Sports Correspondent 

Hello and welcome back to Inside Track!

There's only one place to start this week, and that is with Manchester City.

On the pitch, Enzo Maresca's side are flying, with five wins from five in the Premier League, but none of that seems particularly important right now as they find themselves neck-deep in controversy.

A lumbering investigation into their alleged financial impropriety has found that the club used "sham" contracts to inflate revenue and understate costs by more than £900 million ($1.19 billion).

City deny wrongdoing and are expected to appeal by today's deadline.

My colleague Lori Ewing has been all over the story and she examines why lawyers think the saga could run for years, how the case has already reached Parliament and why rival clubs are eyeing compensation claims.

Further down, Chiranjit Ojha explains why Brazil's friendly against India in Kolkata on Saturday is more than just a football match, and Amlan Chakraborty writes about the coach who vowed to run naked in the rain if his shooters won an Asian Games medal. Spoiler warning: He didn't.

 

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City set to launch appeal as legal fallout widens beyond Premier League case

Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany lifts the English Premier League trophy at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester on May 13, 2012. REUTERS/Darren Staples

Manchester City are expected to press ahead with an appeal against findings that they breached Premier League financial rules by today's deadline, opening a fresh chapter in a case that has already become one of the most significant in English football.

The club has consistently denied wrongdoing, and indicated they will challenge an independent commmission's findings that they used "sham" commercial contracts as part of schemes to inflate revenue and understate costs by more than £900 million ($1.19 billion) over nearly a decade.

City have said they have a body of "irrefutable evidence" that will clear the club's name, and are expected to argue that the government of Abu Dhabi — not the club's owners — partly funded the sponsorship deals.

The breadth of the fallout facing Manchester City extends well beyond football sanctions.

Sports lawyers have predicted years of further litigation as rival clubs, players and agents assess whether they may have grounds to pursue compensation claims connected to the case.

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Extra Time: What else we're watching

  • ⚽ The extended international break continues into its third week, with plenty of Nations League matches on the weekend, including a rematch of last week's politically charged fixture between Ireland and Israel.