PREMIER LEAGUE meetings are usually cordial, professional and unobtrusive affairs.

All 20 clubs, plus their executives, sit in a room and ignore the massive elephant that also lurks in every meeting — the ongoing litigation and the £50million-plus of legal costs racked up fighting and defending claims.

But at the League meeting next week that elephant is going to get an introduction, as we have just tripped over his trunk.

Manchester City versus the Premier League feels like a boxing match, where at the end of the final round both fighters put their hands up claiming the victory.

If the judges of this heavyweight bout were the public, then City would be clear winners.

They not only have the world’s best team on the pitch but also have the best off it too.

Their PR and media team got their message across while making the Prem’s set-up look like a lower league outfit by comparison.

But it’s not the public or the media the Premier League has to worry about.

It’s the clubs, the rules that govern them and what on earth happens now.

Next week’s meeting is to decide exactly that.

But how did we get here?

Most supporters have never heard of the term APT — Associated Party Transactions — or knew about the new rules regulating them when they came into play in 2021.

APT rules were accepted by the majority of clubs — although by no means all — and were put in place to ensure that all clubs’ sponsorship deals reflect a true and fair market value.

It was hoped to prevent clubs from earning revenue through inflated sponsorship deals from companies related to their owners.

This is important, as the value of sponsorship and other commercial revenue is used to offset the costs of the clubs, like player salaries, agent fees and the manager, which leaves you with a number, usually a loss.

If you go over the League’s number of what they consider to be an acceptable loss — as Everton and Nottingham Forest did — you get a fine, a points deduction or possibly both.

So, the higher your sponsorship, the higher your costs can be and the less you get into trouble.

City challenged the legality of these rules, alleging the APT Rules breach competition and public law and the League’s application of the rules also breached public law standards.

The Prem claims the three-man Arbitration Tribunal endorsed the overall objective of their rules.

They also agreed that if the price of an APT is evidently not at fair market value — what anyone else OTHER than the party connected with the owner would have paid — then the competition will be distorted as the club would be benefitting from what effectively is a subsidy.

The Prem needs a financial system to ensure that football is, remains and will always be competitive.

The undiminished competitiveness of the Premier League is the envy of every other foreign league and club and the reason why our top-flight is the best in the world.

No one wants it to become a competition between too few clubs, usually by the rich ones who can afford multiple multi-million transfer fees and top wages.

So next week clubs have to agree to make the necessary changes to the APT rules to address the Tribunal’s concerns.

This requires 14 votes — at least 14 clubs have to agree — or the whole system is thrown into chaos.

It needs to be so that the system can continue to be effective.

We must stop clubs spending whatever they like to get an unbeatable team and create an uncompetitive league.