What Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe said about Man City legal action

Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe says he opposes the introduction of a football regulator and can understand why Man City are taking legal action against current Premier League rules.

The Blues are challenging the legality of the Premier League's associated party transaction (APT) rules, which are used to determine whether or not sponsorship deals are financially 'fair'.

City are not the only top-flight club who believe those rules should be changed, though they are the only club currently taking legal action against them.

Speaking about the regulation of English football, Ratcliffe told Bloomberg he sympathised with City over their legal action: "I can understand why they are challenging it," he said. "You can understand why they would say that they want an open market, (a) free market.

"If you start interfering too much, bringing too much regulation in, then you finish up with the Manchester City issue, you finish up with the Everton issue, you finish up with the Nottingham Forest issue - on and on and on. If you're not careful the Premier League is going to finish up spending more time in court than it is thinking about what's good for the league. We have got the best league in the world, don't ruin that league for heaven's sake."

The United co-owner is sceptical of what good a government regulator would do to the English game and also questioned the plans to trial an 'anchoring' proposal, which would limit the amount any club could spend on its first-team squad to five times the amount the bottom-placed team receives from the league in centralised media and sponsorship income.

Ratcliffe believes such proposals could have a detrimental impact on the quality of the Premier League as well as their ability to compete on the European stage.

"If you've got a government regulator, at the end of the day they will regulate and that won't be good," he added. “What would anchoring do? The last thing you want in the Premier League is for the top clubs not to be able to compete with the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and PSG. We've got more accountants than we've got sporting people at Manchester United. If you're not careful, the Premier League is going to finish up spending more time in court than it is thinking about what's good for the league."