The Premier League has found Manchester City guilty of almost all of the 115 charges of breaching its financial rules in a damning verdict presented by the top flight of football in England. The league said City broke its rules from 2009 to 2018, including by using “sham” commercial contracts “to artificially inflate the club’s revenues, and reduce its costs, by more than 900 million pounds [$1.2bn]” of secret funding from its Abu Dhabi-based owners. It added that the commission had found City used schemes during the affected period to appear to comply with financial rules.
City, current Premier League leaders, could face punishments ranging from a fine to expulsion. The club denies wrongdoing and says it will appeal the verdict. Here’s what we know about the charges, the verdict and possible sanctions: Guilty on every count barring one, which was a specific failure to cooperate with the Premier League’s investigation during a portion of the proceedings.
City cooperated and were found guilty. The Premier League’s independent commission found City guilty of all charges relating to serious breaches of financial rules across nine seasons, from 2009-10 to 2017-18. League boss Masters said the ruling showed City “systematically broke Premier League rules for nearly a decade”.
City, which denies any wrongdoing, said it was “disappointed and surprised” by the commission’s opinion. City CEO Ferran Soriano called the verdict “a single false accusation” and a “Premier League conspiracy theory”. Sponsorship deals that hid where City’s money came from.
The commission found City arranged sham commercial deals with several sponsors, who only had to pay part of the relevant sponsorship fees, as part of a “disguised funding scheme”, the league said. The remainder was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), which owned the club. ADUG further funded a “sham” arrangement that enabled the club to show lower operating expenses than those it actually incurred, as well as a “sham” circular arrangement with Fordham, an entity that acquired the club’s players’ image rights, which was funded by ADUG.
As a result, the club filed misstated accounts and hid its true finances from auditors and regulators. It is the total by which City’s schemes distorted its accounts. The arrangements inflated revenue and reduced costs by more than 900 million pounds over the nine seasons, so the club appeared to comply with financial rules, the league said.
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