Manchester City still await this summer the outcome of last year's independent liability hearing over their 115 alleged Premier League financial rules breaches.
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Richard Masters looking on before a Premier League match at Anfield
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters(Image: Getty Images)
Manchester City are reputedly now in a window where they should be close to discovering the outcome of last year's liability hearing into 115 alleged Premier League financial rules breaches between 2009 and 2018.
An independent panel heard their case at the International Dispute Resolution Centre near St Paul's in London for a dozen weeks between mid-September and early December. As such, it is now six months since the hearing concluded.
Around that time, it was reported that a decision would most likely come around March, with a more general expectation that it would be during the spring. The former City adviser, Stefan Borson, now believes a verdict could finally be forthcoming.
Speaking on talkSPORT, he said: "I think City must be quite close... If you have a 12-week trial, it takes a long time for the decision to come out. In the outside world, it could easily take 12 or 18 months in the High Court equivalent.
"So we're getting into the window now where the decision feels like it should be coming out. This week felt possible.
"I thought that if it didn't happen in the international window that we had in March, that the parties would find a way with the panel to hold it over until the end of the season so that it didn't distract. We're now in a zone where, commercially, if there's any influence at all from the parties - from the Premier League and the club - they would want to get that decision out during the close season.
Borson added: "We're getting very close to a situation where, if it doesn't come out in the next couple weeks and doesn't come out during the Club World Cup, you're getting very close to the start of the season. Nobody's going to want that. That is a complete disaster."
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