Uefa have given up fighting Man City now the English side are going to dominate their competition
The Telegraph Should the Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin present Manchester City with Europes greatest club trophy before midnight in Istanbul on Saturday he will do so on the third anniversary of another seismic day in the history of both club and governing body.
It was on June 10, 2020, in Lausanne, that a three-day hearing concluded to define the future of City. The clubs team of eleven lawyers and one expert witness in the room that day had, as it would turn out, prevailed. A two year-ban from Uefa competition would be overturned. A 30 million fine cancelled and replaced with a 10 million fine for a separate single charge. The credibility of Uefas financial fair play rules would be in ruins.
Just 15 months earlier, Uefa had lost a case at the same Court of Arbitration for Sport [Cas] to Paris Saint-Germain. Defeat to City served notice that the nation-state clubs, with their unlimited wealth, and legal power it brought, were too powerful an adversary for Uefa and its lawmakers.
The infamous threat in one of the leaked emails that formed the centre of the City case felt prophetic. The clubs Abu Dhabi owners would, it was alleged, unleash 50 lawyers for ten years at the cost of 30 million, rather than bow to Uefas rules. As it turned out, City had won in a much shorter timeframe. The Uefa process had banned and fined the club on February 14, 2020. By June 10 of that year, City had won the case on appeal at Cas, even if it was not until the following month that the result would be declared.
