Despite Manchester City’s successful appeal, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin maintains that the European regulatory body was “right” to boot them out of the Champions League for violating financial regulations.
UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) issued a two-year punishment to English heavyweights City in February 2020, but the sanction was reversed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in July of the same year.
Some of the alleged breaches were “not established” by CAS, while others were time-barred.
CAS lowered the club’s fine for failing to cooperate with CFCB investigators to ten million euros (£8.6 million).
Ceferin, however, told Britain’s Daily Telegraph in an interview published Wednesday: “We know we were right. We wouldn’t decide if we didn’t think we were right.
“As a trial lawyer for 25 years, I know that, sometimes, you win a case that you are sure you will lose,” he added.
“And, sometimes, you lose a case when you’re sure… You have to respect the decision of the court.I don’t want to speak about the case in England. But I trust that the decision of our independent body was correct.”
Ceferin’s case in England refers to the Premier League’s decision last year to refer Abu Dhabi-backed City to an independent commission, which was charged with more than 100 violations of the competition’s financial regulations.
The club stated that they looked forward to presenting “irrefutable evidence” against the charges.
City, led by Pep Guardiola, won the Premier League, England’s FA Cup, and Europe’s premier Champions League last season.
However, there are concerns that their on-field progress may be hampered until all allegations of financial misconduct are cleared.
Last week, Premier League chief executive Richard Masters told a British parliamentary committee that a date had been established for the commission hearing, but he did not specify when it would take place.
Masters defended the Premier League’s delay in taking over the charges against City, compared to its relatively quick action in finding Everton had violated the league’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR), by claiming that the City case was “in volume and character” different from Everton’s or Nottingham Forest’s.