Due to Griona and Manchester City both qualifying for next years Champions League the City Football Group may have to sell their stake in the club as UEFA states, Sad News as Manchester City will not Participate in the upcoming Champions League game next season 😱😭
Because partner club Manchester City also earned a spot in the 2024–25 competition, Girona will have to wait for UEFA authorization before participating in the Champions League next season, sources informed ESPN.
Girona, a La Liga team, has qualified for the Champions League for the first time in its 94-year existence. The team’s victory over Barcelona on Saturday, 4-2, moved them into second place and ensured that they will finish in the top four this season.
Girona, one of the 13 teams that make up the City Football Group (CFG), has qualified alongside Premier League team City, which has sparked concerns about a possible inconsistency with Article 5 of the UEFA Club Competitions regulations on multi-club ownership.
CFG owns 47 percent of Girona, while Marcelo Claure, an American-Bolivian businessman and head of Club Bolivar, another CFG team, owns the other 35 percent. Girona’s chairman is Pere Guardiola, the brother of City manager Pep.
If two teams from the same ownership group qualify for the same UEFA competition, the team that places best in its domestic championship will play in that competition, under UEFA competition regulations. The team with the greatest club coefficient—in this scenario, City—would qualify if the two teams finish in the same spot.
The English team will take the CFG spot in the Champions League ahead of Girona due to the factors mentioned above. 2023 Champions League winners City need just two points to secure runners-up spot in the Premier League — City will win the title for the fourth consecutive season if they win all three of their remaining fixtures.
Girona will need to clarify its stance and organizational independence from Manchester City at a UEFA Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) this summer in order to be approved to play in the Champions League, despite reports indicating that the Spanish team is unlikely to be dropped to the Europa League in order to avoid a matchup with City.
The Red Bull Group owns both RB Leipzig and FC Salzburg, and both have been approved to compete together in the Champions League in previous seasons. In July of last year, UEFA approved the entry of several teams into its championships in spite of any shared ownership problems.
The CFCB hearing resulted in the approval of Aston Villa and Vitoria, Brighton and Union Saint-Gilloise, AC Milan and Toulouse, and all of them to compete in UEFA tournaments.
If both Manchester United and Nice—both partly or partially controlled by Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS Group—qualify for European play, they will also be subject to a CFCB hearing.
While United is outside the European berths in the Premier League, they can still qualify for Europe through the league or by defeating Manchester City in the FA Cup Final on May 25. Nice holds a Europa League spot in fifth place in Ligue 1.
