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An independent commission found Manchester City guilty of nearly all 100-plus Premier League financial charges, with wrongdoing exceeding £900 million. The club faces sanctions including possible points deduction or expulsion and plans to appeal.
Manchester City has been found guilty of almost all of the unprecedented 100-plus charges brought against it by the Premier League over a nine-year period, in what the league called the most significant disciplinary case in its history.
The independent commission's verdict was published on Tuesday UK time. Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said the ruling showed City systematically broke Premier League rules for nearly a decade. He called the case and decision the most significant in Premier League history. City's financial wrongdoing was worth in excess of £900 million, or about $1.7 billion, according to the league.
Manchester City Faces Severe Sanctions Appeal
The club now faces severe sanctions that could include a huge points deduction or even expulsion from the Premier League. The Premier League said sanctions would be decided in a separate hearing held by the independent commission. Such penalties would cause severe reputational damage to City's Abu Dhabi ownership. City has always denied wrongdoing.
In a statement, the club said it was disappointed and surprised by the ruling. It plans to appeal the verdict, further dragging out a case that has already run for more than three years, and said it would be relentless in its fight to clear its name. Any appeal by City would have to be made by Friday, the league said.
City chief executive Ferran Soriano was asked for comment by broadcaster Sky News and replied: I have nothing to say, thank you. The explosive ruling comes after it emerged last week that the charges against City were expected to be upheld following an exhaustive process. The Premier League initiated its case more than three years ago after allegations arose in 2018 from leaked club emails and documents.
City was accused of a raft of financial violations from 2009 to 2018, a period when the north-west club, long in the shadow of great rival Manchester United, was transforming itself into a record-breaking global superpower that 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 and breaching financial rules established by the Premier League and UEFA, European soccer's governing body, intended 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 and 2023. The league said an independent commission found Manchester City guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League's financial rules over a nine-season period, and the majority of charges in relation to its failure to cooperate with the league's investigation.
Financial Violations Covered Nine Season Period
The charges covered 2009 to 2018, a period when the Abu Dhabi-backed club transformed itself into a record-breaking global superpower. The commission's core decision is a 40-page document. Central to the finding that the club was guilty of all charges of breaching the Premier League's financial rules is the conclusion that when Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, bought the club in 2008, he set out ambitious plans for City.
But those ambitions could not be met by the finances then being generated. The commission said the club appreciated from the early days of ownership that very significant funds would be required if the steps needed to realise those ambitions were to be fulfilled. In the first instance the club relied on extra injections from Mansour, or owner equity.
But according to the commission, the club recognised that was not a sustainable model, and that with owner equity to be excluded from financial fair play rules it needed to grow its commercial operations. One way of doing this, the club decided, was to seek high-value sponsorship arrangements in the UAE generally and in Abu Dhabi in particular. What resulted was what the commission called the Disguised Funding Scheme, or DFS.
Traditional sponsorship valuations would not be enough for City to meet their ambitions and forestall financial losses, so City applied a different approach. In the words of the commission, the club would enter into sponsorship agreements with Abu Dhabi sponsors which contained substantial sums at well above fair market value.
However, the sponsor would not be liable to pay the recorded sponsorship fee, and would not do so. Instead the sponsor would pay only a small percentage of the fee, described by the commission as the base sum. The rest, or the tagged sum, would be paid for by Mansour, or at least the company that he had formed to control City, the Abu Dhabi United Group, or ADUG.
The DFS, the commission said, allowed the club to state that its commercial revenues from Abu Dhabi sponsorship agreements, and so its income generally, were far, far greater than was in fact the case. It also allowed the club to conceal from third parties the true extent of the equity contributions in fact being made into the club by ADUG.
Sham Sponsorship Deals Inflated Club Revenues
As a result, it said, each of the Abu Dhabi sponsorship agreements was a sham. 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 filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators, the league added.
City had argued in its defence that sponsors had paid all the money, but that the sponsors had required, from time to time, financial assistance from the Abu Dhabi government and its crown prince court to meet their sponsors' obligations. City's argument therefore was that although money was given by the Abu Dhabi government to sponsors, the club was not involved.
During the period under investigation, from 2009-10 to 2017-18, City had booked £949.94 million in sponsorship revenues from Abu Dhabi-based companies. Of that total, only £119.25 million had been paid in base fee. The rest, £830.69 million, were tagged sums paid by ADUG to the club. By some estimates, the £830 million accounted for as much as 30 percent of City's revenue over the period of the investigation.
It was a sum far greater than the total revenue of most of their rivals. The scale of the funding also grew heavily over time. In 2009-10, the commission identified £22.5 million in tagged sums paid by ADUG. By 2017-18 that figure had risen to £134.73 million, the highest total across the seasons under investigation.
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 during the affected period, to appear to comply with financial rules, the league said. The commission broke the charges into four blocks. Once the first had been established, the rest followed.
Verdict Expected Trigger Chaos English Soccer
The finding suggests that City's rise to the top of the English game, fuelled by investments from Abu Dhabi that delivered its expensively assembled, star-studded squads, was achieved at least in part by evading the league's financial regulations. 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, such as 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 partial.
The case has already run for more than three years and any appeal would extend it further.
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theage:Manchester City guilty of almost all 115 financial charges by independent panel 
brisbanetimes:Manchester City guilty of almost all 115 financial charges by independent panelThis story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
Manchester City Premier League Financial Fair Play Disguised Funding Abu Dhabi United Group Premier League Financial Charges Disguised Funding Scheme Premier League Sanctions Financial Charges Abu Dhabi Sponsorship Points Deduction
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