Football regulator boss David Kogan has vowed to quit if prevented from punishing Manchester City’s owners — and is ready to ask government for extra cash to fight any legal challenge from Abu Dhabi.
The Independent Football Regulator has the power to disqualify City’s owners and force Sheikh Mansour to sell up following the club’s conviction for systematically breaking Premier League rules.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has raised concerns about that outcome, prompting fears of government interference, but Kogan has made it clear he won’t stand for ministerial meddling.
“Our independence is absolute, and my independence personally is absolute,” said Kogan, who previously donated to the Labour leadership campaigns of Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy and Burnham’s predecessor Keir Starmer.
“I made it very clear last year that any form of political interference in the way we operate is going to result in my resigning from this role, and I stand by that completely.
“To be crystal clear, we’ve come under absolutely no political pressure whatsoever on this or any other topic, and I don’t expect to in the future. I think ministers and indeed opposition parties know full well that we’re going to act entirely independently.”
The IFR will wait for City’s appeal against more than 100 convictions of financial rule-breaking before taking any action, which Kogan said would be based on legal advice.
IFR will demand more funding if sued by Man City, says Kogan
If disqualified, Sheikh Mansour would be given a deadline to sell which, if not met, would trigger a third party taking over the sale at a price City would have no control over.
“We are not a black and white, tick-box regulator,” said IFR CEO Richard Monks. “It allows us to take a broad view of the suitability of a particular owner.”
Kogan dismissed concerns that the IFR did not have deep enough pockets to sustain long-running legal action from super-wealthy owners such as City’s, saying it would demand more money from the government in order to fight its case.
“If we’re facing a long-running legal challenge, we will clearly go back to government and get financial support from government. That’s nothing to do with our current budget. That’s going to be an exceptional circumstance,” he added.
“I don’t expect a problem with the Treasury or with DCMS if we’re suddenly facing a substantive legal challenge, assuming that legal challenge is one that we’re prepared to fight and prepared to win. But as I say, we have yet to face that situation.”
Kogan and Monks were speaking in Manchester at the launch of the draft State of the Game report, which will inform its policy and, they said, highlighted the dichotomy between English football’s great success and growing financial risks.
A major step towards resolving that – a new deal that will see more money flow more evenly from the Premier League to the divisions below – now appears close after years of wrangling. “I think the leagues are pretty much agreed on most of the detail,” Kogan said.
The IFR will take a more proactive approach to clubs seeking to exploit loopholes in financial rules by, in the case of Chelsea, selling their women’s team to a related party or, in several others, selling their stadium or other assets to their ultimate owner.
“If a club tried to do something like that under our regime, we would just say no,” said Monks. “We wouldn’t just say no in terms of pointing to a specific rule, but because we have this much broader assessment of risk.” Monks added the regulator could instead allow it but insist on other measures, such as clubs trebling their cash balance.
The IFR will next week reveal its plans for the levy on clubs which will fund its costs and those incurred by government in establishing the watchdog. Any extraordinary legal action it is required to fight would not come from its levy-derived budget, Kogan said.