Leading sports barrister Nick De Marco has highlighted the "most incredible delay" in reaching an outcome in the key Manchester City legal case.
Wednesday marks two years to the day since an independent commission hearing began to examine more than 100 charges laid against City by the Premier League in relation to alleged breaches of its financial rules.
The charges were first laid in February 2023, with the Premier League's investigation having begun in 2018, but still no outcome has been announced. City strenuously deny any wrongdoing.
De Marco, who has worked on a number of high-profile football cases, including on behalf of Leicester in their dispute with the Premier League over alleged rule breaches, wrote on X on Wednesday: "It is a most incredible delay. So much for those who argue that one of the advantages of sports arbitration is it is speedier and more efficient than using the courts..."
De Marco is not involved in the City case, although Lord David Pannick, another barrister at the same firm, Blackstone Chambers, has worked for City on the case.
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters conceded last month the process in the City case had taken longer than he expected, however he said it was not something which regularly came up when he spoke to top-flight clubs.
"I obviously speak to clubs all the time. It's not necessarily a topic of conversation that is top of the list," he had said at a media briefing on the eve of the new season.
Masters was asked if there was a danger that the case may never be resolved, and replied: "It will resolve itself. I literally can't say a thing about it. There's only one available option, which is to allow the process to reach its natural conclusion.
"I can't talk about the substance of the case. I can't talk about the timing of the case. Our rules are very clear about that."
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Asked whether the league should implement rules to cap the length of time deliberations could take, or to look at using full time panellists, Masters said: "We've always said that the commission need the time and space to do their work.
"In the end, as you know, it's the league's job as the regulator, provided the evidence is there, to put serious allegations in front of independent commissions, that independent process to establish the truth.
"In the end, that process shouldn't really be qualified by the amount of time it's going to take to establish the truth."