Premier League look incompetent and deluded fighting Man City truth - clubs must notice

If nothing else, you have to hand it to Richard Masters and the Premier League for being a living, breathing version of Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes.

When Manchester City warned them in December 2021 that the Associated Party Transaction rules they were proposing were anticompetitive and procedurally unfair, they went ahead with them anyway. When City warned them in February 2024 that proposed amendments were unlawful, they went ahead with them anyway.

When an independent tribunal agreed with City in September 2024, the Premier League told anyone who would listen that the tribunal had in fact 'endorsed' them and pushed through new amendments against the legal advice of City and without the full verdict from the tribunal. And now that the tribunal has declared that the APT rules are 'void and unenforceable', the Premier League have again put their fingers in their ears and ignored impartial legal verdicts to say that it doesn't matter because they've already brought in these new, rushed-through rules so who cares.

For all the scaremongering about City playing by their own rules and going off with their ball if they don't like the game, it is the Premier League who is acting like the belligerent dictator or spoilt child (one often acts like the second), refusing to accept the reality of the facts that everyone can now see. Masters, and anyone who listens to him and repeats the delusions of the Premier League, look more deluded with each passing month.

It's important to point out the facts, especially since so much of what goes on between the Premier League and its clubs is confidential and only emerges when all parties are trying to spin their own narrative. There are political motivations behind every single player in