{"id":123498,"date":"2025-09-08T19:44:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T19:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/123498\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T19:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T19:44:09","slug":"man-city-and-premier-league-agree-settlement-over-commercial-rules-liverpool-fc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/123498\/","title":{"rendered":"Man City and Premier League agree settlement over commercial rules &#8211; Liverpool FC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-ail=\"326906\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/man-city\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Manchester City<\/a> and the <a data-ail=\"326906\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/premier-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Premier League<\/a> have reached a settlement in their dispute over the rules governing associated party transactions (APTs).<\/p>\n<p>Under the settlement, City accept that the current rules governing APTS are \u201cvalid and binding\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>City had launched arbitration proceedings on January 20 against the current rules, which are designed to ensure that deals between clubs and entities linked to their ownership are done at fair market value.<\/p>\n<p>City\u2019s challenge was understood to have included criticism of the way the <a data-ail=\"326906\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/premier-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Premier League<\/a> treated shareholder loans under the rules.<\/p>\n<p>The league and City have agreed to make no further comment on the matter.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-lazy-type=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/100823-017-Man_City_Liverpool-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - Monday, August 23, 2010: Manchester City's Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak (L) with Owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan sees his side take on Liverpool in his first ever Premiership match at the City of Manchester Stadium. (Photo by David Rawcliffe\/Propaganda)\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" class=\"lazy lazy-hidden alignnone size-medium wp-image-226352\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>The APT rules were originally introduced in December 2021, following the Saudi-led takeover of <a data-ail=\"326906\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/newcastle\/\" title=\"Newcastle\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Newcastle<\/a> earlier that year.<\/p>\n<p>Those rules were successfully challenged by City last year, with a tribunal finding them unlawful on multiple grounds, including the fact they excluded shareholder loans from fair market value assessments.<\/p>\n<p>That led to the <a data-ail=\"326906\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/premier-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Premier League<\/a> consulting with clubs on amendments to the rules, with 16 teams voting in favour of the amended rules at a meeting last November.<\/p>\n<p>City\u2019s acceptance the amended rules are valid and binding appears to put to bed an issue which had threatened to have a major impact on the league if the rules had been significantly weakened.<\/p>\n<p>Without APT rules, entities linked to clubs\u2019 owners could potentially overvalue sponsorships and other commercial transactions to boost a club\u2019s revenue, putting that club in a stronger position under the league\u2019s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) and therefore given more leeway to spend on transfer fees and player wages.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-lazy-type=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2023-12-30-009-Man_City_Sheff_Utd-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - Saturday, December 30, 2023: Players and supporters stand to remember those they know who died during the year before the FA Premier League match between Manchester City FC and Sheffield United FC at the City of Manchester Stadium. Man City won 2-0. (Photo by David Rawcliffe\/Propaganda)\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" class=\"lazy lazy-hidden alignnone size-medium wp-image-326070\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>An assessment of shareholder loans for fair market value was incorporated into the APT rules last November, but the rules do not apply retrospectively.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the fair market assessment only applies to ongoing and future loans. The rules also allowed a grace period for shareholders to convert such loans to equity.<\/p>\n<p>Among other changes approved in November was the introduction of the right for clubs to access databank information \u2013 used by the <a data-ail=\"326906\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/premier-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Premier League<\/a> board to make a fair market value assessment \u2013 at an earlier stage.<\/p>\n<p>City and the <a data-ail=\"326906\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/premier-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Premier League<\/a> still await the outcome of an independent commission hearing which was examining more than 100 charges against the club for alleged breaches of the league\u2019s financial rules, charges City strenuously deny.<\/p>\n<p>The hearing took place between September and December last year, after City were charged by the <a data-ail=\"326906\" target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisisanfield.com\/liverpool-fc\/premier-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Premier League<\/a> in February 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester City and the Premier League have reached a settlement in their dispute over the rules governing associated&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,134,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-123498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-liverpool-fc","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}