Real Madrid coach José Mourinho joked that he’ll be lucky to still be around to see the final verdict in the Premier League‘s case against Manchester City.
An independent commission’s verdict published last week found City guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules. It detailed how City arranged “sham” commercial deals to inflate revenues and reduce costs by £900 million ($1.2b billion) during a nine-year period between 2009 and 2018.
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The verdict came 21 months after the culmination of a 12-week hearing, following an investigative process that dates back to 2019.
However, City have appealed the verdict and say they have “irrefutable evidence” of their innocence.
And Mourinho, who led Manchester United to second place in the Premier League behind City in 2017-18, said he is not holding his breath waiting for the case to come to its conclusion.
“I would rather laugh about it,” Mourinho said of the case during an interview with Italian publication Corriere dello Sport. “I think we will eventually get an ending, but we are both in our 60s and we’ll need to be lucky enough to still be around when the final verdict arrives.
“There will be a verdict, then appeals, then more appeals.”
Mourinho has previously said that he may still receive a winners’ medal if City are stripped of the prize.
The Premier League said that City’s appeal to an independent appeal board “will remain private and confidential until publication of the outcome is permitted.”
Fines, points deductions and other sporting sanctions are among “a broad discretion” of sanctions available to the commission, the Premier League also said.
ESPN has reported that a timeframe is in place for City’s fate to be resolved by the end of this season.
But City could yet take the case beyond sporting regulatory bodies to the High Court in the United Kingdom if the appeal fails and City can prove serious irregularities in the Premier League’s disciplinary process.
Information from ESPN’s Mark Ogden was used in this report.
