Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan could be forced to consider selling the Premier League club if its appeal against the league’s financial-rule verdict is unsuccessful, according to leading Middle East analyst Christopher M. Davidson.
Davidson, an expert on the United Arab Emirates and author of Abu Dhabi: Oil & Beyond, said an upheld verdict could create significant political and reputational difficulties for Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, potentially making continued ownership of the English champions untenable.
Speaking to The Athletic, Davidson argued that the issue could go beyond football, suggesting that the Abu Dhabi leadership would be concerned about the wider perception of the club’s ownership in England.
“Once there’s some time to digest this, my feeling would be that they would extricate themselves,” Davidson said.
He added that the Abu Dhabi ruling family could regard the verdict as an embarrassment and seek to distance itself from the club rather than allow the controversy to continue.
Davidson said, “The ruling family of Abu Dhabi would feel that they had been embarrassed and disgraced by this ruling, and the best way of moving forward would be to sell now to cut the losses, as it were, rather than allow this to be a festering, lingering problem where the ownership of their club would be forever tainted in England.”
“I can’t see any scenario where they would continue,” he added.
His comments followed the Premier League’s confirmation that an independent commission had found Manchester City guilty of serious breaches of the competition’s financial regulations covering a nine-season period between 2009/10 and 2017/18.
According to the commission’s findings, City had arranged what it described as “sham” contracts with commercial partners, allegedly allowing the club to artificially inflate its revenues and reduce its costs.
The commission also found City guilty of three of four groups of alleged failures to cooperate with the Premier League’s investigation.
Manchester City has strongly rejected the findings and launched an appeal, arguing that the commission’s decision contains significant errors of law, principle and fact.
The outcome of that appeal could therefore have major implications for the club, although any decision to sell would ultimately rest with its owners.
Davidson’s prediction, however, appears to contradict the position previously expressed by City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak.
In June, Al Mubarak insisted that there was “no intention to sell” Manchester City or the wider City Football Group, describing the club and the group as prized assets that would not be put up for sale.
“Manchester City and this group within the football world is a pinnacle and these sorts of jewels you don’t sell,” Al Mubarak said.
City has since continued to operate under the ownership of Sheikh Mansour, who acquired the club in 2008 and transformed it into one of the dominant forces in English and European football.
However, Davidson believes a failed appeal could fundamentally change the situation by leaving Abu Dhabi facing a prolonged reputational battle over the club’s ownership.
For now, Manchester City’s future remains tied to the outcome of its appeal, with the verdict potentially determining not only the club’s sporting and financial consequences but also the long-term relationship between the Premier League giants and their Abu Dhabi owners.
