Even if Richard Masters gave a stock 'no comment' answer, it would have been better than simply not talking about the Premier League's charges against Manchester City at all.

Masters has opened 2025 with a sit-down interview with a new Sky Sports podcast, but hard-hitting and in-depth it was not. Listening to him speak, you would not know this is the man leading the Premier League in the middle of a titanic legal battle with its defending champions, having lost a courtroom battle with the same club in recent months forcing a significant rule change.

Masters did reference the Profit and Sustainability Rules that require changing after City successfully proved the old version was against UK competition law. After trying to explain the new proposed rules, comparing them against UEFA's, he said: "We think [the threshold for permitted losses] is the right place to put it at and see if the clubs vote it through during the course of the season."

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That is where the legal talk stopped.

There was no talk of the independent panel in the PSR case ruling so damningly against the Premier League (although their statement in response claimed a baffling victory so that isn't a surprise), and not even a question put to him about the 115 charges against City which were heard at the end of 2024.

It's not like Sky Sports (and every other outlet) haven't spent two years talking about the charges - they would be desperate to hear the latest from the most relevant person possible. All he had to do was bat the question away and move on. It would have been enough and entirely understandable.

A verdict is expected this year, likely in the first months of 2025, which will determine if City have systematically cheated and broken financial rules, or if the Premier League have launched the significant allegations without sufficient evidence to prove it. Either outcome will send shockwaves throughout English football and Masters is a key player in the story.

He has spoken about the case in the past, even to say he can't say anything, so to not even talk about it stinks of a conditional media appearance to make him look better at the start of a career-defining year. These interviews happen all the time but some situations don't call for them.

What he did do was talk about the need to 'enforce the rules'. Asked if doing that meant you were always going to upset someone, he said: "Our job is to make clubs successful. Part of that is enforcing the rules. They all agree we have to have rules. They all sign up to it and shake hands on it once a year at our AGM.

"At the centre, our jobs is to enforce the rules. There's no happy alternative. The alternative seems to be not to have rules or not enforce them and that is a far worse choice and not one we've ever contemplated. It does bring difficulties but we have to face up to them."

Clear as mud, thanks Richard.

But any City fans thinking this podcast would go by without a mention of their club won't have been disappointed. Discussing the growing football schedule, Masters started by actually saying what City have been shouting for years.

"We've been very vocal on our criticism of... the overloading of players generally on the number of matches they have to play," he said. "We're at a tipping point. We want as leagues to have a bigger say in the global calendar going forward. The leagues and the player's unions are not happy with the decisions being taken at a global level."

That leads him onto the Club World Cup. "If either Manchester City or Chelsea get to the final of that competition, the Premier League starts four weeks later and all players are supposed to have three weeks off as part of a contractual commitment. So how does that work? With great difficulty I would say."

If only there was a way for the Premier League to help, or a precedent set previously...

City and Chelsea asked the Premier League for a delayed start to the season - just like City and United got in 2021 - but the league refused. Masters can't claim to be on City's side on this one having refused to help them when they presented a workable solution.

"We believe that if leagues and players unions were involved in the decision-making about how these competitions were put together you'd have better outcomes, that's what we're calling for," he added. "[And] nobody knows exactly how much revenue this competition is going to generate and how it's going to be distributed. But it will have an impact, clearly."

Whatever Masters was trying to achieve with this media appearance, it won't have had the effect he was hoping for.