Manchester City: Court of Arbitration for Sport releases reasons for lifting

A 93-page document outlining the written reasons for why Man City’s two-year ban from European football was overturned has been released by CAS

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SSN’s Kaveh Solhekol reports on the written reasons published by CAS explaining why Manchester City’s European ban was overturned

Manchester City’s European ban was overturned after accusations that the club’s owners disguised at least £204m as sponsorship went unproven, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has revealed.

The document states that City denied in the strongest possible terms that they had entered into a conspiracy with their sponsors Etihad Airways and Etisalat.

The club insisted a total of 5.5m emails were stolen from them, UEFA’s case was based on six specific emails, and a CAS panel ruled that the emails constituted admissible evidence.

The written reasons confirm that on March 9, 2020, nine Premier League clubs – Arsenal, Burnley, Chelsea, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester United, Newcastle, Tottenham, and Wolves – wrote to CAS asking that “a stay of execution” from City’s Champions League ban be withheld, in the event that City never applied for a stay.

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City boss Pep Guardiola said he would welcome a phone call with Jose Mourinho and Jurgen Klopp to discuss the ruling from the Court of Arbitration for Sport

The majority of the panel found that UEFA’s allegation that sponsorship income had been inflated was not proven.

Payments from Etisalat were…