Man City FFP: Sheikh Mansour to sell club after being ‘disgraced’ by guilty verdict – UAE expert

Manchester City’s owners will sell the club after being “embarrassed and disgraced” by the independent commission’s guilty verdict, according to a UAE expert.

The Premier League confirmed last week that an independent panel has found City guilty on all charges related to breaches of their financial regulations over a nine-year period.

It was found that City had arranged “sham” contracts with commercial partners to inflate revenues and reduce costs to the tune of over £900m.

City maintain their innocence and have appealed the ruling but the so-called ‘irrefutable evidence’ that the club bosses insist will prove their innocence is, well, refutable.

READ: Ten Manchester City grounds for appeal and why they won’t wash

We wait to learn the Premier League punishment and just how much City will have to pay their rivals in damages.

Etihad Airways have piled further pressure on the Premier League, threatening legal action over the ‘damaging implications’ of the commission’s findings, while making a telling blunder in their 307-word statement.

Expulsion from the Premier League is a possibility, but Gary Neville believes the only “fair” punishment would be for the independent regulator to remove City’s owners.

However, Christopher M Davidson, UAE expert and author of Abu Dhabi: Oil & Beyond, insists owner Sheikh Mansour will walk before he’s pushed if the club’s appeal is unsuccessful, despite chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak insisting there is “no intention to sell” City in June.

“Manchester City and this group within the football world is a pinnacle and these sorts of jewels you don’t sell,” Khaldoon said.

But Davidson argues the independent commission’s verdict will change their minds.

“Once there’s some time to digest this, my feeling would be that they would extricate themselves,” he told The Athletic.

“I think primarily it would be seen from a political and cultural aspect. The ruling family of Abu Dhabi would feel that they had been embarrassed and disgraced by this ruling, and the best way of moving forward would be to sell now to cut the losses, as it were, rather than allow this to be a festering, lingering problem where the ownership of their club would be forever tainted in England.

“I can’t see any scenario where they would continue.”

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