Manchester United could sue City for tens of millions if 114-charge guilty verdict stands

Manchester United could pursue a compensation claim worth tens of millions of pounds against Manchester City if a reported guilty verdict on 114 of 115 Premier League charges is upheld and survives appeal.

City are set to be found guilty of 114 charges relating to alleged breaches of Premier League spending rules between 2009 and 2018, though the club has indicated the process is not yet concluded and has confirmed it will appeal any adverse decision. While the independent panel’s written reasons are still awaited, rival clubs are already weighing their legal options under Premier League rules that allow one club to seek financial redress from another.

United are reportedly one of at least four clubs that preserved the right to bring a compensation claim before the statute of limitations passed. Any such claim would only be heard once the full appeal process has concluded.

Tom Murray, Co-Founder and Partner at sports law firm Three Points, outlined the core legal challenge facing any club that pursues City. “Historically, compensation cases brought by one club against another were rare,” he said. “The challenge in these types of cases is proving causation. This involves constructing what is known as a counterfactual — carrying out a hypothetical analysis of what would have happened had Manchester City not breached the Premier League’s rules.”

Murray explained that a club would need to demonstrate a direct line between City’s alleged financial advantage and a specific sporting loss — for example, that United would have won the title or qualified for the Champions League but for the breaches. “It doesn’t necessarily follow that in a situation where Manchester City had less money to spend on players that they would have had less sporting success,” he added. “Whilst there is a correlation between the amount a club spends on its squad and its sporting success, there is not necessarily a causal link between the two.”

The most recent precedent for a successful inter-club compensation claim came in June, when Burnley sued Everton and were awarded £35 million following the Toffees’ own Premier League financial rule breaches. Everton have appealed that decision, but the case established that such claims can succeed when expert evidence is used to demonstrate the material sporting impact of a rival’s violations.

For United, the potential financial stakes are significant. Champions League qualification alone carries hundreds of millions of pounds in broadcast and prize revenue, meaning even a single season’s wrongful exclusion could form the basis of a substantial claim — provided causation can be proven to the panel’s satisfaction.