Manchester City CEO Ferran Soriano: The accusations are false

Ferran Soriano has spoken for the first time since UEFA banned Manchester City from the next two editions of the Champions League and fined them €30 million. 

The CEO of the Premier League club has given an interview to the club's official channels in which he stresses that the accusations are "false." 

"The fans can be sure of two things. The first one is that the allegations are false," said Soriano. "And the second is that we will do everything that can be done to prove so.

"The owner has not put money in this club that has not been properly declared. We are a sustainable football club, we are profitable, we don't have debt, our accounts have been scrutinised many times, by auditors, by regulators, by investors and this is perfectly clear."

"Political"

Soriano, who. added he was "disappointed but not surprised" by the "prejudicial" decision and would appeal, said he felt the punishment had been more political than anything. 

"Ultimately, based on our experience and our perception, this seems to be less about justice and more about politics," he said. 

"We did cooperate with this process. We delivered a long list of documents and support that we believe is irrefutable evidence that the claims are not true," said the Spaniard.

"It was hard because we did this in the context of information being leaked to the media in the context of feeling that every step of the way, every engagement we had, we felt that we were considered guilty before anything was even discussed.

"At the end, this is an internal process that has been initiated and then prosecuted and then judged by this FFP [financial fair play] chamber at Uefa."