'The tribunal found that it was wrong. This is a big deal in competition law'

THE Premier League came unstuck against City in their opening submission of the hearing into Associated Party Transaction Rules.

- SIMON BAJKOWSKI

Three senior judges agreed with them that 'owner funding, like state aid, is subsidisation.

'That is particularly so when other sources of external funding are not permitted! However, they subsequently concluded that it was unlawful to exclude shareholder loans from Profitability and Sustainability Regulations when the same treatment was not afforded to APTs and it was classed as an object infringement of competition law.

"An object infringement is the most serious sort of grievance. It means that you don't actually have to do a detailed dive on the impact of that infringement," Jack Williams, a barrister in competition law at Monckton Chambers told M.E.N.Sport.

"If you look at it, you go, this is just wrong. The tribunal found it was just wrong - this is a big deal in competition law terms.

"They didn't have to go through loads of economic analysis. It's dressed up over 175 pages but they've basically looked at these terms and decided they are discriminatory and unlawful.