The chair of English football’s Independent Regulator (IFR) has stated that the watchdog will hold “absolute power” to compel Manchester City’s owners to sell the club if they are ultimately judged to have run it improperly.
An independent commission has found Premier League leaders City guilty of more than 100 charges of breaching Premier League financial rules between 2009 and 2018.
The club has appealed and denies any wrongdoing, but unless it overturns the verdict, it faces a severe sanction.
Owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, vice-president and deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, City has grown into the dominant force in English football since the 2008 takeover.
“We have the power to ask an owner to step away from a club if we believe that they run a club in a way that is neither fit, fair, nor done with propriety,” the IFR’s chair David Kogan told “The Rest is Football” podcast.
When asked whether an owner could refuse to divest, Kogan added, “No. We’ve got absolute power to do so.”
Last week Kogan also said he would resign if there were any political interference in any investigation the IFR might carry out into the city.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has drawn criticism for his initial remarks on City’s guilty verdict, saying he would be “really concerned” if the club’s Abu Dhabi owners left following the ruling.
Downing Street was subsequently forced to backtrack, insisting that no one was “above the rules.”
Burnham, who served as mayor of Greater Manchester from 2017 to June 2026, has since published all of his dealings with the city hierarchy.
Yet the case presents the UK government with a delicate balancing act: it must preserve its long-standing ties with the Emirates while not interfering in the independence of the disciplinary action against City.
