Keith Wyness has been speaking about the Man City legal challenge to Premier League financial rules
Keith Wyness believes Everton may have been looking to the future with the club’s involvement in Manchester City’s Associated Party Transaction (APT) case against the Premier League. Documents released when the decision was made public earlier this week showed a representative of the Blues was called as a witness of fact by City.
Figures from Chelsea and Newcastle United were also called by the current Premier League champions, while the league drew upon representations from Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and others
The details of any submissions were not made public but Wyness, former chief executive of Everton, said he was surprised to see his old club’s involvement fall on City’s side as they launched a challenge against the APT regulations.
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Those rules seek to prevent clubs benefitting from deals with groups associated with their owners that appear to be inflated beyond what is deemed as fair market value.
City brought their claim after having lucrative sponsorship deals blocked by the Premier League and achieved partial success as the panel that oversaw the case found the rules and their application to have been unlawful in some instances.
Large swathes of City’s case were rejected, however, leading to both sides scrambling to claim victory.
Wyness, who was also once CEO at Aston Villa, suggested Everton’s involvement may have implied a desire to have more freedom when it came to the parameters that would be applied as the club seeks sponsorship deals under prospective new owners and with its landmark new stadium.
He told Football Insider‘s Inside Track podcast: “I could understand Chelsea and Newcastle, certainly with Newcastle having the Saudi owners and Chelsea having access to pretty big funds in private equity.
“I was a bit more surprised about Everton. They obviously felt that the way that sponsorships were being valued was wrong. There may still be some aggravation from Everton against the Premier League, bad feeling against the way they were handled before [Everton received two points deductions after financial cases brought by the league last season].
“It may also be that they’re thinking: ‘Well, we want any new owner coming into Everton to have the flexibility to do more with these sort of sponsorship deals’.”