Manchester City have been found guilty of breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules by an independent commission which says they overinflated their revenues and reduced costs by a total of £900m over nine years from 2009 to 2018.
Understandably, fans of Aston Villa, like many clubs up and down the country, are baying for blood and hoping to see a severe punishment handed down.
However, the elephant in the room for Villa fans is that based on their previous behaviour, the club’s owners are unlikely to share that opinion, and may side with Man City particularly if the idea of kicking them out of the Premier League is floated.
On Thursday morning, Rob Dorsett of Sky Sports reported two senior Premier League executives told him they would be “staggered” if 15 clubs were willing to expel City from the league, which is the number of votes required for that to happen.
The independent commission can only recommend expulsion, not enforce it, so essentially all but four Premier League teams (Manchester City will not vote to kick themselves out) would need to agree to give them the boot.
Why would teams want to help City after their actions, that chief executive of the Premier League Richard Masters called “systematically” breaking the rules for nearly a decade?
The answer is financial. Whether they got here on merit or not, Man City are now a huge pull for people watching the Premier League around the world. One executive reportedly told Dorsett it would “cost the other clubs an awful lot of money” if City were expelled from the league.
If it comes to it, do not expect Villa to vote to oust City from the Premier League.
Back in 2024, Villa were one of three sides along with Manchester City, Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest to vote against amendments to the Premier League’s associated-party transactions (APT) rules, which had been in place in some form since 2021.
Man City and Newcastle are functionally state owned – even if that is not technically true on paper – by the UAE and Saudi Arabia respectively. Forest’s owner Evangelos Marinakis is controversial in his own right. This is who Villa decided to align themselves with on the APT vote.
Chelsea were another club believed to be in support of City’s stance, although they eventually voted with the majority of Premier League clubs to pass the amendments.
The APT rules are in part designed to make sure teams are not able to gain an unfair advantage by artificially revenues or reducing costs, which is exactly what Man City have been found guilty of by the independent commission.
Villa’s majority owner Nassef Sawiris has been vocal about his frustration with the league’s financial rules.
In June 2024 he told the Financial Times: “the rules do not make sense and are not good for football”. Sawiris claimed the rules are “anti-competitive”, which is a position Man City has also taken.
It is one thing to believe rules that tie permitted spending to revenue, therefore limiting the impact of wealthy and ambitious owners looking to improve their team are unfair.
That does not necessarily mean Sawiris and Villa support Man City breaking the rules that are in place, which the majority of the Premier League clubs voted for. It is important to make that distinction.
Sawiris does have ties to the United Arab Emirates and Abu Dhabi, which could help to explain his supportive stance towards Man City.
Villa’s owner was CEO of OCI Global until 2020 and has remained on the board since. In 2019, OCI Global formed chemical manufacturing company Fertiglobe in a joint venture with Abu Dhabi’s state energy company ADNOC, with Sawiris initially serving as Fertiglobe’s CEO.
OCI Global completed a sale of their 50% stake in Fertiglobe to ADNOC in October 2024 for a reported $3.62 billion (£2.74 billion).
Bloomberg reported back in December 2023 that Sawiris, whom they have also listed as Egypt’s richest man, was moving his family office to Abu Dhabi and would re-domicile his investment company NNS Group to the UAE capital. He closed his London office in April 2024.
In the same year, Yahoo Finance reported Sawiris was believed to have a “warm” relationship with Khaldoon Al Mubarak, who is Manchester City’s chairman.
Even if the independent commission recommends kicking Manchester City out of the Premier League and there are some teams willing to, do not expect Aston Villa to be one of them.
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