The case against Manchester City is expected to take long because the the scandal goes beyond rules of Financial Fair Play.
City are being accused of more than 100 separate breaches, with the alleged offences having taken place between 2009 and 2018.
The allegations were raised following a four-year investigation, and the final report will be submitted to an independent commission.
However, according to The Independent newspaper, the case is about the far more serious allegations of fraud, dishonesty and a failure to accurately disclose information.
The reigning English champions were engaged in vague transactions, especially their 2012 sponsorship deal with Emirati telecommunications company Etisalat.
The club’s owner – Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan – arranged payments understood to total £30m on behalf of Etisalat through his company Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) for sponsorship in 2012 and 2013.
And the telecoms company didn’t actually pay anything until 2015.
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Similar dealings also happened with the Etihad sponsorship in which the airline was paying only £8m of the package worth £35, £65m and £67.5m from the 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2015-16 seasons, respectively, with the rest coming from ADUG.
UEFA first flagged these dealings but sat back after City’s appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The publication further claims that the club’s lawyers on the UEFA case were initially “taken aback” because they expected it to be about FFP.