Commission: Manchester City guilty on every financial charge, sanction to come
The Premier League has published the independent Commission's core findings: 'sham' sponsorship deals inflated revenues and reduced costs by more than £900 million, and the sanction hearing is next.
News desk2 min read
An independent Commission has found Manchester City guilty on all of the financial charges the Premier League brought, covering nine seasons of the club’s accounts. The same ruling upheld three of the four charges that the club failed to co-operate with the League’s investigation, and it covers Seasons 2009/10 to 2017/18.
The Commission found the club arranged ‘sham’ commercial agreements with several sponsors, part of a disguised funding scheme under which those companies paid only a portion of the sponsorship fees and Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd, the club’s owner at the time, funded the rest. The effect was to inflate revenues and reduce costs by more than £900 million, and the club then filed misstated accounts that concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and from football regulators. Had those agreements been reported accurately, the Commission found, the club would have been in breach of both the League’s and UEFA’s spending limits by a very substantial amount.
What the League has published
The League has released a redacted version of the Core Decision, with further appendices to follow, and it can publish because the Commission’s decision has been ruled a final award. Richard Masters, the League’s chief executive, said the decision “details how the club systematically broke Premier League Rules for nearly a decade”, and called the case “the most significant in Premier League history”.
The League opened its investigation in December 2018 and issued its complaint in February 2023, and the Commission’s 42-day hearing finished in December 2024.
Sanction still to come
No punishment has been set: the Commission will decide that at a separate hearing, held in private, with options that run from fines to points deductions and other sporting sanctions. The club may appeal the findings and has until 2 October to do so.
Manchester City play at Liverpool on 11 October, kicking off at 11.30pm Malaysian time.
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StraitScore Desk
News desk
Written and checked by software before publication, and reviewed every day by a StraitScore editor after it goes live. Match facts are checked against StraitScore's own data; reported claims are checked only against what the named source actually said. Corrections: [email protected] — we aim to respond within two working days.
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