Manchester City launch new legal bid over sponsorship rules

Manchester City have launched a fresh legal challenge against the Premier League over its rules governing commercial deals linked to a club's owners.

City are contesting amendments made to the associated party transaction (APT) rules voted through by top-flight clubs last November, changes which were themselves forced on the league by an earlier legal challenge by the reigning champions.

It means there are now three live legal cases between City and the Premier League – one covering more than 100 charges against City for alleged breaches of the league’s financial rules, which the club have always strenuously denied, the initial APT challenge and now the new challenge.

The APT rules seek to ensure deals struck between clubs and entities linked to the club’s owners are done at fair market value.

City challenged the rules on competition law grounds and in October last year an arbitration panel ruled aspects of the APT rules were unlawful, among them the exclusion of shareholder loans from the fair market value test.

City argue the ruling rendered all the APT regulations void, whereas the Premier League position has always been that the ruling only required it to remedy discrete elements of the rules – something it felt it achieved with the amendments approved by 16 of its 20 clubs last November.

City’s legal counsel Simon Cliff had warned of further legal action in a letter to clubs in October if there was any "knee-jerk reaction" to amend the rules.

A clarification of the original ruling is being waited on by City and the Premier League, which means that case is still effectively ongoing.

Now though, that same panel has been asked to look at the changes made in November, with Premier League chief executive Richard Masters