MANCHESTER City’s efforts to block alterations to Premier League sponsorship rules failed on Friday as clubs voted to approve changes.

All but four teams voted in favour of the amendments to the associated party transaction (APT) rules, which were forced on the league by a legal challenge from City.

The rules assess whether commercial deals between clubs and entities linked to their ownership have been done for fair market value.

They are considered by their backers as key to preventing those with the deepest pockets from artificially inflating the value of such deals.

Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest and Newcastle joined City in calling for a delay, while Saints were among the 16 teams who voted in favour. 

The outcome represents a success for Premier League chief executive Richard Masters because a defeat on these amendments threatened to throw the league into chaos.

City’s original legal submission challenging the rules, according to The Times, included a reference to the league’s voting structure, describing it as a “tyranny of the majority”.

Chelsea were reported to be a club that might back City but in the end, their general counsel James Bonington spoke in defence of the changes at the meeting.

Last month an arbitration panel found aspects of the APT rules were unlawful, among them the exclusion of shareholder loans.

The Premier League said in September it had spent over £45million last season in legal fees to uphold its rules, with the biggest case of all centred on more than 100 alleged breaches of financial rules by City, charges the club strenuously deny.

The amended rules will only look at what is a fair market rate of interest on existing and future loans and will allow a grace period to convert such loans to equity.

Other changes approved roll back amendments introduced in February and introduce the right for clubs to access databank information – used by the Premier League board to make a fair market assessment – at an earlier stage.