Manchester City’s legal case has power to blow Premier

The champions’ claims threaten the collectivism that has been central to the league’s success over three decades

This week, at an unspecified location in central London, the latest stage in the Premier League’s civil war will begin to unfold. Expected to last two weeks, the arbitration case brought by Manchester City against the competition of which they are champions will be dry, its verdict technical. The consequences, however, will probably be anything but.

City, who are owned by Sheikh Mansour, the vice president and deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, will argue in front of a panel of three independent lawyers that the Premier League is breaking the law of the United Kingdom.