Football regulator confirms it can force Manchester City sale
David Kogan has set out how far the Independent Football Regulator's powers could reach once Manchester City's appeal process is complete, raising the prospect of consequences beyond sporting sanctions. Speaking on The Rest Is Football podcast, Kogan said: "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 or done with propriety.
When Alastair Campbell asked whether an owner could simply refuse, Kogan was unequivocal. We've got absolute power to do so, he said The regulator's powers concern the suitability of owners and senior figures, rather than simply the sporting sanctions available through the Premier League process.
City are appealing against an independent commission's finding that they committed 114 breaches of Premier League financial rules. The commission found that sham" commercial arrangements inflated revenue or reduced costs by more than £900 million across nine seasons.
City continue to deny any wrongdoing despite delaying and frustrating the process at every point. Kogan has made clear that the regulator will not pre-judge what those proceedings mean for City's ownership.
"I am not going to get pushed into making any judgement on this until we've seen all of those questions being answered and then we will have to decide whether we're going to mount our own investigation and come to a conclusion on that and what we're going to do," he explained. He also said pre-empting that process would be "a colossal mistake".
Kogan said: "We would judge against the tests of ownership and senior directors and executives. We would judge the actions of those individuals.
The authority to remove an owner comes from the Football Governance Act 2025. Under that framework, the regulator can determine that an existing owner is unsuitable, direct that person to take reasonable steps to cease being an owner and, where the statutory conditions are met, make an ownership removal order.
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