Manchester City have until Friday 2 October to file the appeal that could rewrite the verdict against them. The independent commission upheld 114 of the 115 charges on 25 September, covering nine seasons of alleged financial breaches from 2009-10 to 2017-18 and most of the club’s alleged failures to cooperate with the Premier League’s investigation.

The verdict was widely treated as an endpoint. It is not. City have said the opinion “contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe” and will pursue every avenue open to them.

Hickinbottom will pick a fresh panel

An appeal will not be heard by the judges who ruled on the substantive case. A fresh three-person panel will be selected by Sir Gary Hickinbottom, chair of the Premier League’s judicial panel. One member must have held judicial office and will chair the appeal board.

Legally, the process is a review of the initial decision, not a retrial. Because that review can still find the original ruling unsafe, the outcome ranges from a rubber-stamp of the guilty verdict to what reports suggest could amount to a full retrial.

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Proceedings are held in private. There is no route to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) if City lose the appeal. Unlike the club’s 2020 UEFA case, which was dismantled by CAS, the Premier League’s process ends inside the league.

No punishment while the appeal runs

The commission has not set sanctions. That hearing was always due to be separate, and any timetable is now bound to the appeal. A points deduction, a transfer ban or, at the most severe end, expulsion from the Premier League cannot be imposed while the appeal is live.

The £900m at the heart of the case, an amount the Premier League says was used to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs across nine seasons, sits at the top of any fresh panel’s brief. So do the upheld charges over the club’s failure to cooperate, which run through to 2022-23.

Filing on Friday convenes the panel

Filing on Friday will convene the appeal panel and postpone any sanctions hearing. If City do not lodge, an outcome the club has ruled out, the sanctions phase begins immediately. Once the fresh commission has ruled, its decision will be final.

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