Manchester City have been found guilty on 114 of the 115 charges brought against them by the Premier League for alleged breaches of financial regulations between 2009 and 2018. The verdict, first reported by The Athletic, was delivered by an independent commission following a hearing that began in September 2024 and ran for 12 weeks. No decision on sanctions has yet been made.
The club were charged and referred to an independent commission in February 2023 after a four-year Premier League investigation. The charges cover six broad areas: 54 counts of failing to provide accurate financial information across nine seasons from 2009-10 to 2017-18; 14 counts relating to inaccurate reporting of payments to players and a manager; five counts of breaching UEFA financial rules; seven counts of breaching the Premier League's own profit and sustainability rules; and 35 counts of failing to co-operate with the investigation from December 2018 to February 2023. In total, the original 115 charges were extended to 130 after an administration issue, in what has been described as the most expensive and wide-ranging case in English football history.
The central thrust of the case was that upwards of £60m per season in sponsorship income, officially attributed to Abu Dhabi-based companies, had in reality been paid directly by the club's owners. City were also alleged to have met a portion of former manager Roberto Mancini's wages and certain player payments through alternative sources, away from official records.
City released a statement insisting that the process "remains ongoing, with significant elements to be completed, and subject to strict confidentiality," adding that the club had "diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis that the Premier League Board and Executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator, free from partisan influence." The club did not deny that the panel's decision had been communicated to them.
An appeal is considered inevitable. City have consistently denied any wrongdoing since the charges were first published. Finance expert Stefan Borson, who advised the club between 2002 and 2007, was unsparing in his assessment when speaking to talkSPORT, saying an appeal on the facts was highly unlikely to succeed. "An appeal on the facts is highly unlikely to succeed," he said. He added that any punishment would be severe, and refused to rule out expulsion from the Premier League when pressed on the matter.
The range of potential sanctions is considerable. Points deductions, transfer restrictions, substantial fines and expulsion from the top flight are all possibilities under the league's rules, though no determination has been reached on any of them. The stripping of titles won during the relevant period has also been raised as a theoretical sanction — City won three Premier League titles between 2009 and 2018 — though no such decision has been made. The sanctions process is formally separate from the commission's findings on the charges.
The case has its origins in 2018, when Der Spiegel published documents drawn from a cache of material originating with Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto. UEFA subsequently launched a formal investigation in March 2019, which resulted in a two-year ban from European competition and a fine of around £26m. City appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which overturned the ban and reduced the fine to €10m, finding that most alleged breaches were either unproven or time-barred, though the club were found to have failed to co-operate with UEFA authorities.
William Hill suspended betting on City being relegated this season in the wake of the verdict. The hearing was conducted at the International Dispute Resolution Centre in London. Both City and the Premier League declined to elaborate beyond their initial statements when approached for further comment.
Reporting: Mirror, The Athletic, Daily Mail, The Sun, ESPN, GiveMeSport, Evening Standard, World Soccer Talk, Daily Star, talkSPORT, BBC Sport, TeamTalk, The Guardian, Metro.