Manchester City has been found guilty of almost all of the unprecedented 115 charges of financial wrongdoing it faced, the Premier League confirmed on Tuesday, in one of the biggest scandals in English soccer history.
City, the most successful team in England for the past 15 years and the current Premier League leader, now faces severe sanctions that could include a huge points deduction or even expulsion from the world’s most popular soccer league, causing huge reputational damage to its Abu Dhabi ownership.
The explosive verdict by an independent commission — which was reported by a number of British media outlets on Friday — “details how the club systematically broke Premier League rules for nearly a decade,” Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said in a case that was initiated by the competition more than three years ago and first arose in 2018 from leaked club emails and documents.
City said it was “disappointed and surprised” by the commission’s verdict, that it was “innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League” and will be “relentless” as it pursues avenues to appeal.
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City was accused of a raft of financial violations from 2009-18 — a period when the northwest club, long in the shadow of great rival Manchester United, was transforming itself into a record-breaking global superpower that has won multiple Premier League titles and the Champions League.
The violations included failing to provide accurate financial information and submitting inflated figures for sponsorship deals out of Abu Dhabi, hiding payments that supplemented the salaries of managers and players, and breaching financial rules established by the Premier League and UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, aiming to keep clubs financially stable by not spending beyond their means.
On top of that, City faced many other charges of failing to cooperate with the investigation between 2018-23.
“An independent commission has found Manchester City guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules over a nine-season period,” the league said, “and the majority of charges in relation to its failure to co-operate with the league’s investigation.”
Regarding the sponsorship deals, the league said: “Manchester City arranged ‘sham’ contracts (which misrepresented the true agreement between the parties) with a number of its commercial partners, as well as relying on ‘sham’ agreements with others, to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs.
“The club,” the league added, “filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators.”
The purpose of City’s “schemes” was found to have been to “artificially inflate the club’s revenues, and reduce its costs, by more than £900 million ($1.19 billion) during the affected period, to appear to comply with financial rules,” the league said.
The finding suggests that City’s rise to the top of the English game, fueled by investments from Abu Dhabi that delivered by its expensively assembled, star-studded squads, was achieved at lest in part by evading the league’s financial regulations.
The Premier League said sanctions will be decided in a separate hearing held by the independent commission.
Any appeal by City would have to be made by Friday, the league said.
Tuesday’s verdict is set to bring chaos to English soccer in general, triggering a slew of lawsuits from rival clubs calling for compensation for having been impacted by City’s actions.
There’s also the question of whether City’s top stars, like Erling Haaland and Rayan Cherki, will stay at the club and what the future holds for Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. He is the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family who bought City in 2008 and has gone on to own a group of worldwide teams — under the City Football Group banner — including New York City FC and Melbourne City.
City has always protested its innocence in the case, saying in 2023 when the charges were laid that there was a “comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of its position.”
Even over the weekend, City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said there remained a “confidence and intent in proving the club’s innocence.”
The appeal could end up in the High Court in London if City feels the process in the case was unfair and/or impartial.
