Financial expert Stefan Borson believes the verdict of Manchester City's Premier League charges is still "some way away". The reigning champions are in a battle with the top-flight over alleged breaches of the league's financial rules.
The Manchester club are continuing their legal battle after being charged with breaking financial fair play rules over a nine-year period from 2009. Further allegations have been made against the club, including failing to co-operate with the Premier League in investigations into their finances.
The Premier League allegations were brought to light in 2023 when the breaches added up to 115 charges, but reports have suggested it is in the region of 130. The 12-week hearing began in mid-September and concluded on December 6, held in front of a three-person independent commission at the International Dispute Resolution Centre in London.
With the volume of charges and the hearing, the timeframe has been reported to take several months due to the amount of information to be reviewed. Borson, who worked as an advisor for City previously, has suggested that there is still no timeframe in sight, but as we're now into the beginning of April, it is officially the earliest point that the possible sanctions or verdict can come to light.
“I think it’s a shame that we don’t know when it’s coming, actually," he told talkSPORT.
"I think for the Premier League and for City from the very early stages they should have set out an expected timetable so you don’t have City fans, fans of other clubs and also probably most importantly City employees are wondering whether something that could be very transformational for the club is going to drop, so I think that they should have done more.
"When are we going to find out? In reality, we are now coming into the earliest practical period in which it could have been released. If you have a 12-week trial, it is going to take some time for the decision to be written up and for the decision to be made. They need to make sure and everything that they say in that decision is appeal-proof as possible.
"What no panel wants, what no tribunal wants, is for everything they have written to be immediately challenged either because it misrepresents what happened, what was heard, what was said, or in terms of the law. It gets undermined. It’s the negative, as of this weekend the club had not heard anything in terms of the decision.
"That is not a club source but I know that is the case. They also do not know the precise date on which they are going to learn the decision. The idea Pep’s been saying we’re due to here by whenever, Pep doesn’t know because nobody knows. The only people who know are the tribunal, and that has not yet been discriminated to the parties."
He continued: `"We are still some way away because you would at the very least expect they would have a few days to review a decision for minor errors and typos, so once it drops with the club it is probably another week away from the release. The other part of it is people are busy, so Lord Pannick is on other cases - he’s in the High Court today on a high profile case that you’ll read about in the papers.
"The professionals around the table have other things they’re working on so when that decision does drop and there is follow-on parts of it such as what’s the sanction, that then could take some time before we have a hearing around a sanction. Maybe (April), maybe not. People will be bored of me saying the same things but we’re now in the early stages.
"I’ve said it before, if this was a High Court three-month trial we wouldn’t be hearing about this in 2025, we’d be hearing about it in 2026 at the earliest. They’re going about it relatively quickly. It could come in April but it really wouldn’t be a surprise if it was some time away.
"Unfortunately that is the nature of these allegations, the serious of what has been alleged and the length of the trial in 2024."