David Kogan has made a firm stance against political interference in the IFR. Annabel Lee-Ellis/PA Images via Getty Images The chair of the Independent Football Regulator (IFR) has said he will quit if there is political interference in any future investigation launched into Manchester City.
The club have been found guilty by an independent commission of clearly intending to circumvent Premier League financial rules over a nine-season period.
City have appealed against the verdict, but if it is upheld the IFR could also act, and has the power to force owners to divest from clubs in extreme cases.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham raised eyebrows when he said he would be "really concerned" if City's Abu Dhabi owners left following the commission verdict, emphasising the potential for this case to have implications for diplomatic and trade relations between the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates.
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IFR chair David Kogan was adamant however that he and his body would not stand for any meddling in their work, should they seek to take action against City's owners in the future.
"We are absolutely bound by one thing, and that one thing is regulating football and regulating football clubs," he said at the launch of the IFR's "State of the Game" report in Manchester on Tuesday.
"Our independence is absolute, and my independence personally is absolute. I made it very clear in an interview last year that if we [experience] any form of political interference on the way we operate it is going to result in my resigning from this role, and I stand by that completely.
"Just to be crystal clear, we've come under absolutely no political pressure whatsoever on this or any other topic, and I don't expect to in the future."
An earlier draft of the Football Governance Bill contained a clause which said the IFR needed to "have regard to the foreign and trade policy objectives" of the UK Government in making suitability assessments, but this was scrapped.
Man City have been found guilty of over 100 breaches of financial regulations. Getty Kogan's hiring as IFR chair was the subject of an inquiry by the Commissioner for Public Appointments over his historic links to the Labour Party.
While it found rules had been broken by Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy for failing to declare donations she had received from Kogan, the inquiry accepted he was not aware of the deviation from best practice and made no finding about his suitability for the role.