Manchester City’s lawyer is so popular with the fans that he has his own banner in the stands at the Etihad.
The club are essentially at war with the division that they are the champions, record breakers – of, having just won their fourth Premier League title in-a-row – the first team to ever achieve the feat.
Pep Guardiola’s side launched ‘unprecedented legal action’ – featuring a 165-page document – against the league on Tuesday, and are still awaiting an outcome for 115 charges for allegedly breaching financial rules – that are strongly denied by the club – with a hearing now set for November.
City argue that the Premier League’s Associated Party Transaction rules (APT), which prevent clubs from determining the price of deals with companies linked to their owners, are unlawful.
To fight their case, they have turned to country-renowned lawyer Lord Pannick, the man who, for over a year, has been battling England’s top flight. It is now almost go-time, with the hearing to start on Monday, expected to last a fortnight, with a verdict to follow.
Manchester City have appointed Lord Pannick to head their case against the Premier League
The lawyer is one of the most renowned in the country, fighting a number of high-profile cases throughout his career
Pannick was integral in overturning UEFA’s two-year ban on participating in European competition at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2020. He advised former prime minister Boris Johnson over the Partygate inquiry, then defeated Johnson’s government in the Supreme Court over the shock prorogation of Parliament five years ago.
He is reported to charge around £5,000 an hour for his services, which puts him in line with the top earners in the Premier League. There is a confidence around the defending champions that they will successfully defend the claims in front of an independent commission.
The 68-year-old holds two degrees from Oxford University, specialising in Public Law, Human Rights and Constitutional Law.
Elsewhere during his career, he represented the British Olympic Committee against Dwain Chambers, resisting in the High Court the claim that he was left out the team for the 2008 Olympics due to an earlier finding of doping.
He has also worked for the government of Hong Kong, Shamima Begum, and in the case with Johnson, essentially the Queen, when it was ruled that the former Prime Minister had given her unlawful advice.
It wasn’t his first interaction with Her Majesty, meanwhile, with the veteran appointed as a Queen’s Counsel, now the King’s Counsel, in 1992.
City have launched ‘unprecedented legal action’, featuring a 165-page document, against the league
Pannick is so popular with City fans that he has his own banner, often on display at the Etihad
Pannick is not short of big-game experience and could earn north of £200,000-a-week if his reported rate is anything to go by. That puts him on par with some of the club’s biggest stars and top earners.
‘Pannick on the streets of London’, a City banner read back in 2023. They will definitely have an aura of confidence with their case in his hands.
