Manchester City CEO Ferran Soriano has rejected an explanation for a secret meeting between Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal chiefs in 2017, seen as the ‘smoking gun’ to prove the existence of the ‘Red Cartel’.

City were found guilty of breaching 114 Premier League rules by an independent commission last month, as the panel found them to have used ‘sham’ sponsorship deals to boost they earnings by around £900m between 2009 and 2018.

The club have now appealed that verdict as they insist upon their innocence and claim they have ‘irrefutable evidence’ to prove it, in the form of documents showing that the sponsorship funds came from the Abu Dhabi government rather from their owners.

Possible punishments include fines, transfer bans, points deductions, Premier League expulsion and titles being stripped, while the owners could also be removed by the Independent Football Regulator.

When Soriano rejected the independent panel’s verdict last month he spoke of the “Premier League’s conspiracy theory,” and an ESPN report details why those comments are thought to have been directed as much at the old guard of Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United as the Premier League itself.

Theories on the existence of the so-called ‘Red Cartel’ have inevitably increased in number and vehemence since the guilty verdict.

Manchester City stakeholders claim that the three biggest Premier League teams have clubbed together in a bid to stop their club rising to the top, lobbying for tough financial fair play rules to prevent them and other clubs from reaching their level.

A photograph taken by a diner at a New York restaurant co-owned by Robert de Niro is ‘exhibit A in their argument’.

Man Utd owners Joel and Avram Glazer and the club’s then-executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward are sat alongside Liverpool owner John W. Henry and Ivan Gazidis, Arsenal’s chief executive at the time, at the Locanda Verde restaurant in Tribeca in October 2017.

The meeting took place seven days before a Premier League vote on the distribution of future global broadcast revenue.

The Big Six – Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Man City, Tottenham and Chelsea – all wanted a greater share of the revenue, which they secured later in June 2018.

The absence of Chelsea, Man City and Spurs from the dinner meeting has been explained away quite simply by the three members of the ‘Red Cartel’ all having American owners, but sources have told ESPN that Soriano and the rest of the City hierarchy have ‘never accepted’ this as an explanation.

Instead, ‘those at the highest level at the club have no doubts about the desire of their red-shirted rivals to create an environment in which it is more difficult for the club to succeed’.

“From day one, United, Arsenal and Liverpool have been terrified of losing their ability to dominate everything from the Premier League to the transfer market,” a source with links to City told ESPN. “Chelsea was already a problem for them under Roman Abramovich, but Sheikh Mansour came along [in 2008] and changed everything again, and the red clubs have been in a battle against City ever since.”

It’s claimed that City weren’t happy when senior figures at Man Utd and Liverpool were ‘given special access to candidates vying to succeed Scudamore as Premier League CEO’.

Even though none of the candidates were hired, City see this as clear evidence of bias.

And they’re also frustrated by what they see as a ‘disproportionate number of former United, Liverpool and Arsenal players working in the media and taking aim at City’.