Yasin Patel comments on Manchester City’s legal challenge against Premier League spending rules

Yasin Patel has provided comment on Manchester City’s fresh legal challenge against the Premier League of Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules, and whether other clubs will follow suit.

“Ultimately, it’s just common sense not to put all your cards down,” Yasin explained to ChronicleLive. “I don’t think it’s the end of the chapter here.”

“There’s a great deal of money there to push forward the agenda for Newcastle United. We have seen what’s happened with Manchester City and how everything has developed. Similarly, when the Newcastle takeover happened, the business plan must have highlighted the development of the club with commercial deals.

“The next stage will be developing all of that and saying, ‘The APTs have stopped us and potentially kept the status quo of some of the other clubs who don’t want the changes coming in because they are in a position whereby, ultimately, they tend to benefit from it’.

“If one were to look at the case of Manchester United, for example, and where they are at, some people might claim, ‘Their financial situation is not very good’. That’s not down to how much they make commercially – they make a huge amount commercially.

“Newcastle United could argue, ‘It’s different in our situation because you’re stopping us making a lot of money because these rules have been enforced post-takeover, which stop clubs like ourselves being able to develop in the way that they should when new owners come in’.

“If you look at the arts world, if someone thinks a Picasso is worth so much but someone else comes along and pays four times’ the value, who is out there to say, ‘Well, actually, it’s not worth that’. They paid that and that’s what they think the value is.

“If you look at the everyday world, a lot of that happens. The only time we have any kind of protection of prices is to protect the consumer. That’s when it happens. In this case, the consumers are the fans.”

Yasin’s comments were published in ChronicleLive, 6 March 2025.