Manchester City to appeal financial breach findings

Manchester City are expected to press ahead with an appeal against findings that they breached Premier League financial rules by yesterday’s deadline, opening a fresh chapter in a case that has already become one of the most significant in English soccer.

The club has consistently denied wrongdoing, and indicated they would challenge an independent commission’s findings that they used “sham” commercial contracts as part of schemes to inflate revenue and understate costs by more than ￡900 million (US$1.19 billion) over nearly a decade.

City have said they have a body of “irrefutable evidence” that would clear the club’s name, and are expected to argue that the government of Abu Dhabi — not the club’s owners — partly funded the sponsorship deals.

The Premier League’s new fast-track rules state that an appeal hearing must be held within 12 weeks of an appeal being lodged, with a decision due within 30 days of the hearing concluding.

However, City is expected to argue the rules were not in place when they were originally charged in February 2023.

The breadth of the fallout facing Manchester City extends well beyond soccer sanctions.

On Thursday, the chair of the Treasury Committee asked Britain’s tax authority HMRC what action it was taking in response to the Premier League’s findings.

Meg Hillier said she had written to HMRC Permanent Secretary JP Marks following the publication on Tuesday of the independent commission ruling that the club had committed “well over 100 individual breaches of the Premier League Rules across the course of many seasons.”

Sports lawyers have predicted years of further litigation as rival clubs, players and agents assess whether they may have grounds to pursue compensation claims connected to the case.

Reigning champions South Korea yesterday struck with eight minutes left to seal a 2-1 win over a “proud” China to reach the Asian Games men’s soccer final. The South Koreans are to face either hosts Japan or Uzbekistan for gold on Saturday as they pursue a fourth consecutive title. Uzbekistan and Japan were tied 1-1 as of press time last night. Bae Jun-ho was their hero, ghosting in at the back post to head in a dramatic 82nd-minute winner at Nagai Stadium.

Men’s soccer at the Asian Games consists of under-23 squads with three overage players. “We were expecting a challenging match but we persevered,”

COURT STARS: Taiwan tennis sensations Hsieh Su-wei and Liang En-shuo advanced to the women’s doubles quarter-finals, along with Chan Hao-ching and Wu Fang-hsien Taiwan yesterday picked up two more bronze medals at the Asian Games in Japan, bringing their medal total to 39, including three golds and 10 silvers, to rank 14th in the overall standings. Lin Yu-ting guaranteed herself at least a silver medal in boxing after she outclassed Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova 5-0 in their women’s 60kg semi-final at the Nishio Gymnasium, putting the Taiwanese Olympic champion just one win from a second Asian Games gold.

Lin is tomorrow to face China’s Yang Chengyu in the gold-medal showdown. The 30-year-old thanked the medical team afterwards for treating the cut to her nose she sustained in

The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) has found itself divided ahead of their two Nations League clashes with Israel, with the players disagreeing over whether to boycott the first game today and goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu withdrawing from the squad. After hours of fraught meetings among the players and occasionally involving coaches and officials, FAI chief executive officer David Courell said at a news conference that had been delayed by several hours that a “significant majority” of the squad had agreed to play the game in Hungary, but it was far from a unanimous decision.

The handful of Irish journalists present questioned Courell

China’s Wang Xiyu, fresh from conquering top seed Alexandra Eala, toppled Zhang Shuai to win Asian Games women’s tennis singles gold yesterday — and a ticket to the Los Angeles Olympics.
The 25-year-old Wang breezed past her compatriot 6-2, 6-1 in 66 minutes at the Higashiyama Park Tennis Center in Nagoya.
Tennis is one of seven sports at the Games where the winners receive an Olympic qualification place.
Wang paid tribute to the 37-year-old Zhang, who has won multiple Grand Slam doubles titles and has now added a second Asian Games singles silver medal to the one she won in 2018 in