Manchester City Could Be Banned From The Champions League Over FFP Claims

Manchester City could face being banned from the Champions League if they're found to have broken UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules after Football Leaks claimed the Premier League side had found a way around them.

Hacker's Football Leaks have been producing some pretty juicy claims in the last few months. In the main these stories hit the news for a short time and then fizzle out because no one knows how much to trust the stories.

Manchester City were perhaps biggest implicated in scandal by the hacker group. The Premier League champions were accused of getting around UEFA's FFP rules.

According to the report the Premier League champions' holding company actually paid £59.5 million of Etihad's sponsorship deal with the club and the airline only paid £8 million of the deal.

Four years ago City were fined nearly £50 million and had their Champions League squad cut down as punishment for breaking FFP rules but, according to a Daily Mail source, the club would face 'sporting sanctions' if they were found guilty of financial doping this time.

Talking about the case UEFA president Ceferin said, "We are assessing the situation. We have an independent body working on it. Very soon we will have the answers on what will happen in this concrete case."

Guardiola has failed in the Champions League since leaving Barcelona. Image: PA Images

The 'sporting sanctions' could include a ban from the Champions League and Europe's football governing body would be likely to go down that route if they believed that the fine in 2014 had no impact on the club.

The fact that to be found guilty City would have had to had broken the rules again it's fair to think that UEFA would believe the previous punishment had no impact.

Of course the claims in Football Leaks are a long way off being proven as the truth.

City were knocked out of last season's Champions League by Liverpool. Image: PA Images

A ban would obviously be a blow to City. The Etihad owned club have won everything domestically, and broken plenty of records, but success in Europe alludes them up to now.

In the past two seasons they have been well beaten in the competition's last 16 and quarter finals by Monaco and Liverpool respectively.

Topics: Manchester City, Football News, Premier League, Champions League

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a writer for SPORTbible. He covers all sport from football, formula one, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics, mma and wrestling. He obviously hates YOUR football team and has no interest in synchronised swimming.

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