On February 14, UEFA decided to ban Manchester City from entering its competitions for two seasons for failing to comply with the Financial Fair Play between 2012 and 2016. The mancuniano club assured that same day that it would seek “a fair trial as quickly as possible” and as soon as he could he used the TAS to review his case and trying to get a more favorable sentence that would force UEFA to readmit them to the Champions League.
Publicly, in court, it will be City against UEFA but, behind, there are many more clubs that want to play a decisive role. According to Daily Mirror reports, the intrigues between clubs have begun and Arsenal is in the lead. This newspaper affirms that the City firmly believes that Arsenal has been the main promoter of a lobby of Premier clubs that wrote to the TAS to position itself in favor of UEFA and maintain the sanction that leaves them out of continental competitions. . In this lobby, which is claimed in court as 'interested parties' would be the gunners with Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, Leicester, Wolverhampton and Burnley, all within or around European positions. The Mirror assures that the main motivation was to be able to eliminate a rival from the dispute of a classification that ensures huge revenues, for this reason, the newspaper clarifies that the red club entered without much interest to have their place secured for the next edition.
Arsenal declined to comment on reports from this British newspaper that it dares to claim that the Gunners will deny if City asks for explanations. The skyblue will fight to maintain their place in the Champions League in a trial in which they will review the sanction applied by UEFA and that the English press dates for the end of this summer due to the general stoppage due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Arsenal-City: a confrontation that comes from afar
Since the change of ownership of Manchester City over a decade ago, Arsenal have been very critical of the ways of the skyblue club. There are more than a few players who made the route from North London to Manchester to raise the level of the blues while the Gunners lost their stars as Nasri or Adebayor.
The penultimate encounter is recent since, according to this newspaper, Arsenal tested Arteta without notifying the Manchester club, something that was not liked at all by the Etihad offices. Now, they will dispute the Champions also in the courts.