La Liga President Javier Tebas
La Liga President Javier Tebas
View Image
La Liga president Javier Tebas wants Manchester City to face the strictest possible punishment for breaching the Premier League's financial regulations.
City are understood to have been found guilty on the majority of charges levelled against them by the Premier League, with news of the verdict breaking on Friday.
There has been no official outcome released by the Premier League and City continue to maintain their innocence and will appeal any potential guilty verdict.
But the outspoken Tebas, who has criticised 'financial doping' in the past, wants any punishment to reflect the severity of the charges and City's non compliance.
“I don’t know the exact rules, but I believe it should be the strictest punishment in the Premier League regulations regarding this matter,” Tebas said at the FIFPRO performance summit in London.
“It should be a punishment intended to set an example. This isn’t a matter of a father and his children – it is a punishment to ensure rules are followed.
“And violating the rules for over 10 years – no matter how minor the infractions – is a very serious matter.
“Therefore it has to be a severe punishment for the non-compliance. Not just to set an example, but because the rules were broken.”
Tebas also wants a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to overturn a two-year UEFA ban imposed on City in 2020 for breaching financial rules to be looked at again.
The CAS, which also reduced a 30million euros fine to 10m euros, cleared City of “disguising equity funds as sponsorship contributions” and ruled that many of UEFA’s allegations “were either not established or time-barred”.
“In my opinion, the CAS decisions should be re-examined, specifically when they cleared City, or rather lifted the sanction UEFA had imposed, because those sanctions were lifted in a very questionable manner,” Tebas added.
“And now it has been proven that UEFA was right regarding the sanctions against Manchester City.”