Manchester City denounces ‘unfair treatment’ by Premier League over Liverpool company data

Manchester City are reportedly complaining of unfair treatment by the Premier League over the assessment of their commercial revenues by data provided by Nielsen Sports, whose figures have already been used by Liverpool.

Liverpool have been following developments in recent weeks with interest, with City taking legal action against the Premier League. The title holders are challenging the need for the associated party transaction rules, which were introduced to prevent companies linked to club owners from artificially inflating the market value of sponsorship deals.

Their Abu Dhabi-based owner group claims the regulation is unlawful and has sought damages accordingly, while a legal date is set for November this year over allegations of financial violations totalling 115 counts.

The rules on related party transactions were introduced in December 2021 following the takeover of Newcastle United by the Public Investment Fund for Saudi Arabia and were designed to prevent clubs from over-extending commercial deals with companies linked to their owners.

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A report from the Guardian now claims that City are unhappy with the use of Nielsen Sports in how their commercial revenues are measured, despite the company’s reputation as a leading expert in providing analytics and data to sporting institutions on media measurement, fan insights and digital and social analytics.

Nielsen describes itself as “the leading source of sports measurement and analysis worldwide” but City are unhappy that the US company’s data is being used to judge whether to respond to a case at the Etihad.