Manchester City have filed an appeal against an independent commission’s ruling that found the club guilty of serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules as it seeks to overturn the decision and avoid potentially severe sanctions. The league said on Tuesday that City had used “sham” commercial contracts as part of schemes to inflate revenue and understate costs by more than 900 million pounds ($1.19bn) over nearly a decade. City were found guilty of all charges relating to breaches of the league’s financial rules over nine seasons from 2009-2010 to 2017-2018 as well as three out of four charges concerning failures to cooperate with the investigation.
The club has denied wrongdoing throughout the process. The appeal will take place in private, as did the original hearings. The board will review the commission’s decision but will not conduct a full rehearing of the case.
The board may dismiss the appeal, allow it, refer the case back to the commission for further consideration, or alter any sanction or compensation order imposed. A decision by the appeal board is final and cannot be challenged further except in limited circumstances that permit a subsequent arbitration process. According to the Premier League, potential sanctions against City could be a reprimand, fine, suspension, points deduction or, in the worst case, expulsion from the competition.
No team has ever been expelled from English football’s top flight. City can also separately appeal against any sanctions. It remains unclear whether sanctions would be announced before the appeal is heard and whether they would take effect immediately.
A league representative told the news agency they could not discuss the process for confidentiality reasons. While the case remains unresolved, the season will continue with leaders City looking for their sixth straight league win when they visit Liverpool on October 11. City is likely to focus part of its appeal around the issue of how its Abu Dhabi-based sponsorship deals were funded.
The commission found that sponsors in Abu Dhabi paid only 119.25 million pounds ($158.4m) of the 949.94 million pounds ($1.26bn) stated in club accounts with the remaining 830.69 million pounds ($1.1bn) being paid by the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), the private company of Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, which bought City in 2008. Mansour is a member of the United Arab Emirates’s ruling family. City contended that “no part” of the deals was funded by the ADUG and, instead, the Abu Dhabi government, which owned the sponsors, had helped to fund the deals “from time to time”.
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