London (AFP)

Manchester City play big against Real Madrid, but also off the field: by contesting before the Arbitration Tribunal for Sport (CAS) its exclusion from the European Cups for two years, the English club threatens to deeply shake fair play financial and European football.

"If the CAS decides that City is whitewashed or not guilty, legally, it is the end as it is of financial fair play", summed up sports economist Pierre Rondeau at the microphone of BFM, shortly after the announcement of UEFA sanction against the English club.

By attacking one of the richest and most powerful clubs in Europe, and hitting hard where it hurts, "UEFA asserts its authority," added the researcher.

Beyond the formidable exhibition window that would close - Manchester City is above all a vehicle of image and influence for its Emirati owners -, a confirmation of the sanction could provoke many chain reactions.

- City on a crusade -

Despite sometimes long contracts, it is not certain that his star players - Raheem Sterling, Kevin de Bruyne, Riyad Mahrez, to name a few - want to sacrifice two of their best sports years to compete in domestic competitions.

The future of Pep Guardiola, beyond the contract year he has left and which he is committed to respecting, European Cup or not, would also be in question.

Especially since the financial losses incurred by an absence on the European scene would greatly exceed EUR 100 million per year and would not be without consequences for the lifestyle of the club, opposed Wednesday to Real Madrid in the round of 16 first leg of C1.

Reaction from a wounded animal or overconfidence, Manchester City has in any case multiplied the brave and even arrogant declarations with regard to financial fair play and UEFA investigators.

Its executive director Ferran Soriano even went so far as to claim that "politics", more than the will to justice, had conditioned this sanction.

Initially, the procedure was linked to the leak of internal emails suggesting that sponsorship revenues could have been largely overvalued to mask injections of funds by the owner, Sheikh Mansour bin-Zayed al-Nahyan, a practice contrary to UEFA regulations.

Losing for technical or procedural reasons would already be a major setback for UEFA, which experienced similar mishaps against Paris SG, for example.

But Manchester City would be tempted to go even further and make this call a sort of crusade against financial fair play (FPF).

- Like the Bosman judgment? -

Before the CAS, a source close to the club told the Financial Times that it would "not be a question of reducing the penalty. This will be the merits of the case, which will be heard from scratch by an independent group and where we think we will prevail. "

If the CAS gets caught up in the field of a challenge to the very principle of the FPF, its decision could have repercussions as vast as the Bosman judgment which had liberalized the circulation of players in Europe.

"If Man. City claims that the FPF is anti-competitive and the CAS agrees with this, UEFA will have major structural problems" to be resolved, said lawyer Daniel Geey in the FT.

"UEFA must try to win because if it does not win, or if (its decision) is attenuated in one way or another, its entire position on the FPF could be wiped out "also judged Simon Chadwick, director of the Center for the Euro-Asian sports industry, questioned by the British agency PA.

And in front of it, UEFA will have a heavy hand, he warned: "Eastern governments, American investors (the investment company Silver Lake ended November 10% of the capital of the parent company of Man City for EUR 461 million), and some of the smartest and most talented people in the world of football. "

© 2020 AFP