PA MediaManchester City face the threat of severe sanctions after an independent commission found they had “clearly intended to circumvent Premier League rules” over a nine-season period.
City were found to have engaged in an almost £1billion scheme to either inflate revenues or reduce costs through a series of “sham” arrangements in order to avoid breaching league and UEFA financial regulations.
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters described the case, and the decision, as “the most significant in Premier League history”, with the league’s investigation having started back in 2018.
More than 100 charges were laid against City in February 2023, with the commission hearing the case between September and December 2024.
The same commission which has given its decision will now consider what sanctions should be imposed, while the club immediately confirmed their intention to appeal, saying the decision “contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe”.
City chief executive Ferran Soriano told staff on a video that the commission had gone along with the Premier League’s “conspiracy theory”.
The club were found by the commission to have operated a “disguised funding scheme” whereby companies from Abu Dhabi paid a fraction of the sum recorded on the club’s books, with the balance settled by Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), the company through which Sheikh Mansour owns the club.
That scheme was found to have inflated revenue by more than £830m over the nine-season period between 2009-10 and 2017-18.
The club also were found to have overstated income from image rights by almost £74m, and understated liabilities for staff contracts by almost £17m.
City were also found to have made “concerted efforts” to “stop and frustrate” the Premier League’s investigation.
The commission made the following over-arching observation – that all the charges “have in common the feature that they involved conduct (and as we have found, intentional conduct) which would disguise the true nature of certain revenues and liabilities/expenses, to give the appearance of minimising the club’s financial dependence on ADUG”.
This, the commission said, gave “a misleading impression in the club’s financial statements that the club’s financial position was better than it in fact was”.
In dealing with each of the breaches related to the Premier League’s rules on financial reporting, the commission said: “The club knew that the annual accounts that it was submitting to the PL in each season did not provide a true and fair view of the club’s financial position, alternatively the club was reckless as to whether those annual accounts provided a true and fair view.
“As a result the club also acted other than with utmost good faith as alleged in (the charge) and so in further breach of the PL rules in that regard. By its conduct the club clearly intended to circumvent the PL rules.”
The commission found that without engaging in these schemes, the club would have been in breach of Premier League and UEFA spending limits by a very large amount.
The commission also found that evidence given by a number of important factual witnesses called to give evidence on behalf of the club was “false in a number of key respects”.
It further found that “certain of those factual witnesses had given evidence at the hearing that they knew to be untrue and so had been dishonest”.
The commission also rejected City’s explanation of how sponsorship revenue was paid to the club as “untrue”. The commission said the club contended that sponsors did pay the full recorded sums, but that sponsors had from time to time applied for financial assistance from the Abu Dhabi government to meet those commitments to City.
The commission decision stated: “We concluded that it was an ‘explanation’ that the club had concocted well after the event in an attempt to obscure and conceal the realities of the disguised funding scheme.”
PA MediaPremier League chief executive Masters said on Tuesday: “The core decision establishes the facts of what happened at Manchester City during this period. It details how the club systematically broke Premier League Rules for nearly a decade.
“It also vindicates the Premier League’s decision to pursue this case against Manchester City. While the process to date has been both long and difficult, the League has remained determined that the facts be established independently.
“It is a key responsibility of the Premier League to ensure that the rules, approved by the clubs themselves, are upheld to protect the integrity of the competition. It is paramount that the League remains competitive and fair for all clubs and for the fans. We take that role extremely seriously.
“This disciplinary case, and this decision, are the most significant in Premier League history. There are elements of the case that remain to be decided, including, importantly, what sanction must follow for these breaches.
“Now we have the commission’s decision, we are committed to moving swiftly through the remainder of the process, to provide certainty for the league, our clubs and fans.”
The commission admitted it was “regrettable” how long it had taken them to produce a decision, and the process still has a long way further to go with sanctions hearing and appeals to be concluded, and is set to dominate discussion throughout the 2026-27 Premier League season.
There is also the prospect of further litigation should other clubs seek compensation if the final decision goes against City.
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