Manchester City’s 115 charges: Why is the legal battle still ongoing?

A lot of football fans have drawn comparisons to the cases brought by the Premier League against Nottingham Forest and Everton respectively over breaches to Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

During the 2023-24 season, both clubs were docked points for making more losses than they were permitted to for the three-year period from the 2020-21 to 2022-23 seasons.

Those cases were of a single charge, were easier to decipher and involved significantly less evidence.

“The Forest and Everton cases were, to a certain extent, very clear-cut. They were an open-and-shut case,” said Maguire.

“There was 50,000 pieces of evidence put forward by both parties.

“In the case of Manchester City, you’re going to have to multiply that by probably a factor of 10, so we could be looking at half a million pieces of evidence, which have to be reflected upon by the three people in the commission.

“They’re also in demand in their own jobs so trying to get them around a table on a regular basis isn’t necessarily easy and that’s why eight months later we’re still not really further down the road in terms of a conclusion to the evidence referral and then making a verdict.”

Earlier this month, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy said the process had “gone on for far too long”.

In response, Premier League CEO Richard Masters told BBC Sport: “The only point where I can speak publicly about it is when a decision has been handed down.

“I can’t speculate about why or when, that’s all I can say really. Daniel is not in the same position as me and I can’t talk about it.”

He added: “There is no happy alternative to enforcing the rules. It goes towards the integrity of the competition and I don’t think that principle should be frayed because it is too difficult, too complex, too costly.”