{"id":809328,"date":"2026-10-21T04:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T04:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809328\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T04:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T04:44:10","slug":"football-regulator-has-absolute-power-to-force-manchester-city-sale-if-verdict-upheld-manchester-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809328\/","title":{"rendered":"Football regulator has \u2018absolute power\u2019 to force Manchester City sale if verdict upheld | Manchester City"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Independent Football Regulator (IFR) will have \u201cabsolute power\u201d to force Manchester City\u2019s owners to sell if they are ultimately found to have run the club improperly, the watchdog\u2019s chair has said.<\/p>\n

Manchester City have been found guilty of circumventing Premier League rules<\/a> by an independent commission, which found they set up \u201csham\u201d commercial arrangements to inflate revenues or reduce costs by over \u00a3900m over a nine-season period.<\/p>\n

They were also found to have made \u201cconcerted efforts\u201d to \u201cstop and frustrate\u201d the Premier League\u2019s investigation into those arrangements. City have lodged an appeal, claiming the verdict \u201ccontains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe\u201d.<\/p>\n

David Kogan, the chair of the IFR, told podcast The Rest Is Football<\/a> it was premature to talk about any action his organisation might take while the appeal was ongoing. Kogan did confirm, though, that the IFR had \u201cabsolute power\u201d to force a sale by the club\u2019s ownership, if that was felt to be appropriate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the power to ask an owner to step away from a club if we believe that they run a club in a way that is neither fit, fair or done with propriety,\u201d Kogan said. Asked if an owner could refuse to divest, Kogan replied: \u201cNo, no, no. We\u2019ve got absolute power to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the possibility of the IFR investigating City, Kogan said: \u201cI am not going to get pushed into making any judgement on this until we\u2019ve seen all of those questions being answered. Then we will have to decide whether we\u2019re going to mount our own investigation and come to a conclusion on that and what we\u2019re going to do. And pre-empting that would be a colossal mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manchester City are majority-owned by Abu Dhabi United Group (Adug), an investment vehicle owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family.<\/p>\n

Kogan has already pledged to resign<\/a> if there is any political interference in any investigation the IFR may undertake into City, amid concerns it could create a diplomatic issue between the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n

Kogan\u2019s comments came amid fresh scrutiny of Manchester City\u2019s finances by the UK\u2019s accounting watchdog. In a letter to the House of Commons business, innovation, science and trade committee, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) confirmed it assumed \u201cregulatory consideration\u201d of the matter on 30 September.<\/p>\n

The FRC said it was examining the independent commission\u2019s findings and making \u201cpreliminary enquiries\u201d to establish whether there were grounds for a formal investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Independent Football Regulator (IFR) will have \u201cabsolute power\u201d to force Manchester City\u2019s owners to sell if they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-809328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809328","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=809328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}