By Adegboyega Adeleye
Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour could sell the club if its appeal against the Premier League’s guilty verdict fails, according to leading UAE expert Christopher M. Davidson.
Speaking in an interview with The Athletic, Davidson, a renowned Middle East analyst and author of Abu Dhabi: Oil & Beyond, believes Abu Dhabi’s ruling family would feel too “embarrassed and disgraced” to retain ownership under a tainted reputation in England.
The Premier League last week confirmed that an independent commission found City guilty of all charges relating to serious breaches of its financial rules over a nine-season period from 2009/10 to 2017/18.
The commission found that City had arranged “sham” contracts with commercial partners to artificially inflate revenues and reduce costs, while also finding the club guilty of three of four groups of alleged failures to cooperate with the Premier League’s investigation.
City have denied wrongdoing and appealed against the verdict, insisting that the commission’s findings contain material errors of law, principle and fact.
However, Davidson believes an unsuccessful appeal could change the position of City’s owners.
“Once there’s some time to digest this, my feeling would be that they would extricate themselves,” he told The Athletic.
“I think primarily it would be seen from a political and cultural aspect. The ruling family of Abu Dhabi would feel that they had been embarrassed and disgraced by this ruling, and the best way of moving forward would be to sell now to cut the losses, as it were, rather than allow this to be a festering, lingering problem where the ownership of their club would be forever tainted in England.
“I can’t see any scenario where they would continue.”
Davidson’s assessment, however, contrasts with comments made by City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak in June, when he said there was “no intention to sell” the club and described Manchester City and the wider City Football Group as “jewels” that are not sold.
“Manchester City and this group within the football world is a pinnacle and these sorts of jewels you don’t sell,” Al Mubarak remarked earlier this year. However, Davidson maintained that an upheld guilty verdict on appeal would alter that calculus completely, forcing Abu Dhabi to protect its broader global standing by severing ties with the Etihad outfit.
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