City's appeal against two-year European ban concludes

Decision expected in the first half of July following video hearing at CAS

City's appeal against a two-year ban from European competitions has concluded today. The hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ran for three days, and the Blues are likely to find out if their appeal was successful in the first half of July.

City were banned by UEFA for two seasons in February and fined €30m after being found guilty of breaches of Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations. The club immediately announced that they would appeal the decision, and have always maintained their innocence, citing "irrefutable evidence" to support their claim.

A statement issued by CAS read:

"The Panel of arbitrators in charge of the matter, composed of Mr Rui Botica Santos (Portugal), president, Prof. Ulrich Haas (Germany) and Mr Andrew McDougall QC (France), will start its deliberations and prepare the Arbitral Award containing their decision.

"The decision is expected to be issued during the first half of July 2020. The exact date will be communicated in advance.

"The CAS arbitration concerns an appeal filed by Manchester City FC against the decision of the Adjudicatory Chamber of the UEFA Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) dated 14 February 2020 in which it was deemed to have contravened UEFA’s Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations and sanctioned with exclusion from participation in UEFA club competitions in the next two seasons and ordered to pay a fine of EUR 30 million."