Manchester City are set to face a transfer ban for third-party infringement and protection of youth players.
Manchester City are set to face a transfer ban for third-party infringement and lack of protection showed to the youth players. The English outfit will not be able to buy their players until June 2020 as per the reports.
The Football Federation see this as a replica of Chelsea eschewing the rules. The Blues, who were caught for a similar shunning the rules are currently serving a ban which will only end after the next season. The London club appealed against the transfer ban, but any sort of reply was turned down by FIFA.
The Football Federation has been investigating Manchester City’s International transfers for years, although the club were cleared of breaking the rules when they signed Benjamin Garre from Velez Sarsfield in 2016 just after the Argentinian midfielder’s 16th birthday.
According to various English publications, FIFA believe that City have taken over advantage of FC Nordsjaelland and the Right To Dream football academy in Ghana that is owned by Danish side’s president Tom Vernon.
Two players from the academy, Sierra Leone’s George Davies and Ghanaian Dominic Oduro told the newspaper that they played for City’s youth team before they turned 18 last year.
Even though Davies plays in Latvia and Oduro features in the United States currently, FIFA have been investigating thoroughly with the English club. The investigation was brought into a spotlight when Manchester City had a deal in agreement with Tom Vernon to reject the best prospect from Right to Dream Academy.
If that is true, the English outfit will face no lesser than a transfer ban because of the third-party infringement as City could be argued that they had the influence of other clubs to sign the players.
On Thursday night, neither City nor FIFA were ready to comment on this matter.
City have welcomed the UEFA investigation into allegations that the club tried to circumvent Financial Fair Play regulations, and Blues boss Pep Guardiola said on the issue last week: “I said last season I trust a lot what the club has done because I know them. Hopefully they can solve it as soon as possible.”
In regards to international transfers of players aged under 18, they are only allowed in three circumstances: the players’ parents have moved to the new country for non-footballing reasons, they and the club are based close to the relevant national border or the transfer takes place within the European Economic Area and the player is at least 16.
Chelsea along with the Spanish trio Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Atletico Madrid have faced transfer bans beforehand. Even though the bans of Real Madrid and Barcelona were cut short, the appeals from Chelsea and Atletico Madrid were turned down without a blink of an eye.
Besides, there were also several reports quoting that Manchester City could be excluded from the Champions League earlier. German publication Der Spiegel exploited their emails and exposed their breach of Financial Fair Play rules.
It is confirmed that the owner of Manchester City, Sheik Mansour was caught by pumping his money directly into the club. The UEFA are investigating Manchester City because they used Abu Dhabi Group as an intermediate sponsorship to transfer the money to the club.
Besides, the former Manchester City player Bruno Zucilini was also partly owned by a company called MPI. However, that is not against the rules. But, when FA asked who was behind MPI, City did not enclose that 30 million euros injection was organized by Manchester City’s chief executive Ferran Soriano.
City are already facing a FA investigation into a £200,000 payment to the agent of Jadon Sancho when he transferred to the club at the age of 14.
The club issued a statement last month: “We will not be providing any comment on out-of-context materials purported to have been hacked or stolen from City Football Group and City personnel and associated people. The attempt to damage the club’s reputation is clear.”
Other clubs in the Premier League have also backed the Football board to take a decision against Manchester City for breaking the rules.
