Manchester City Chief Executive, Ferran Soriano, has issued a defiant message to the executives of other teams about the club being found guilty of a majority of Premier League charges, BBC Sport has been told.
He was speaking at a board meeting of European Football Clubs (formerly the ECA) in Copenhagen before its general assembly on Tuesday.
Soriano was said to have vowed to fight the charges and the process had a long way to run, reiterating what the club’s Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said in a letter to fans.
The Press Association reported Soriano told the executives “it’s taken eight years to get here and it’s going to take a lot more time”, referring to the start of the Premier League’s investigation in 2018.
He then left the meeting without answering any questions from the media.
The report added Manchester United’s Chief of International Football Relations, Jean-Claude Blanc, and Everton owner Dan Friedkin – there in his capacity as owner of Roma – were among those to attend.
City were accused of a wide range of rule breaches, centering around claims they inflated sponsorship revenue from connected companies and made other “off the books” payments to circumvent financial regulations.
On Friday, it emerged they had been found guilty of the vast majority of the 115 charges brought against them.