Premier League CEO Richard Masters just scored huge own goal with two Man City blunders

Even if Richard Masters gave a stock 'no comment' answer, it would have been better than simply not talking about the Premier League's charges against Manchester City at all.

Masters has opened 2025 with a sit-down interview with a new Sky Sports podcast, but hard-hitting and in-depth it was not. Listening to him speak, you would not know this is the man leading the Premier League in the middle of a titanic legal battle with its defending champions, having lost a courtroom battle with the same club in recent months forcing a significant rule change.

Masters did reference the Profit and Sustainability Rules that require changing after City successfully proved the old version was against UK competition law. After trying to explain the new proposed rules, comparing them against UEFA's, he said: "We think [the threshold for permitted losses] is the right place to put it at and see if the clubs vote it through during the course of the season."

That is where the legal talk stopped.

There was no talk of the independent panel in the PSR case ruling so damningly against the Premier League (although their statement in response claimed a baffling victory so that isn't a surprise), and not even a question put to him about the 115 charges against City which were heard at the end of 2024.

It's not like Sky Sports (and every other outlet) haven't spent two years talking about the charges - they would be desperate to hear the latest from the most relevant person possible. All he had to do was bat the question away and move on. It would have been enough and entirely understandable.

A verdict is expected this year, likely in the first months of 2025, which will determine if City have systematically cheated and broken financial rules, or