The Premier League has officially confirmed that Manchester City were found guilty of all charges relating to financial rule breaches spanning the 2009-10 to 2017-18 seasons. Following an extensive investigation, an independent commission determined that the club utilized a sophisticated scheme to disguise secret funding totaling more than £830.69m. According to the published findings, the club engaged in deliberate conduct intended to circumvent league regulations, relying on ‘sham contracts’ with commercial partners to artificially inflate revenues while suppressing reported costs. Live reaction – Man City guilty: ‘Sham’ contracts and £830m overstated income revealed. The League has remained determined that the facts be established independently, while the process to date has been both long and difficult.
Chronology of the Investigation
- November 2018: Football Leaks allegations emerge with Der Spiegel publishing claims Manchester City breached financial fair play rules.
- March 2019: Uefa launches a formal investigation off the back of Der Spiegel’s findings.
- May 2019: City criticise the investigation and launch an appeal process.
- November 2019: The Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) deems City’s appeal inadmissible.
- February 2020: Uefa announces a two-year ban for City from European competitions and a €30m fine.
- July 2020: City’s European ban is overturned after an appeal to Cas.
- July 2021: City lose a jurisdiction ruling that allows the media to report the Premier League is continuing to investigate the champions for alleged financial breaches.
- April 2022: Der Spiegel publishes a fresh report claiming the Premier League has been investigating the club for three years, providing detailed claims.
- February 2023: The Premier League charges City with 115 financial breaches.
- September 2024: The start of a 10-week hearing between the Premier League and City on the 115 charges.
- February 2025: City manager Pep Guardiola says the club expect to learn the verdict within one month.
- 25 September 2026: Reports emerge that a verdict has been reached, with sources telling that City have been found guilty of breaking the majority of the charges.
- 29 September 2026: Premier League releases its findings via an independent commission and confirms the guilty verdicts.
The commission’s report highlighted that the club orchestrated ‘sham commercial deals’ as part of a wider disguised funding scheme. Analysis of the club’s finances revealed that during three specific title-winning seasons—2011-12, 2013-14, and 2017-18—Manchester City recorded £360m in sponsor fees. The independent commission found that only £43m of this total was legitimate revenue, with the remainder effectively provided by the club’s owners under the guise of sponsorship. The commission stated that the relevant agreements were shams, or at minimum, failed to reflect their true economic substance. We take that role extremely seriously.
Furthermore, the investigation found that Manchester City had engaged in reckless conduct designed to avoid recording what would otherwise have been the largest single-season loss in Premier League history. The commission’s findings covered more than 100 alleged individual breaches of league rules categorized into four broad areas. In addition to the financial charges, the commission found the club guilty of all charges except one relating to non-cooperation with the investigation. The report also claimed that several club witnesses gave false evidence, with some individuals knowingly providing untrue and dishonest testimony during the proceedings. Chief executive of the Premier League, said: “The core decision establishes the facts of what happened at Manchester City during this period, richard Masters. It details how the club systematically broke Premier League Rules for nearly a decade. Approved by the clubs themselves, are upheld to protect the integrity of the competition, it is a key responsibility of the Premier League to ensure that the Rules.
The sheer scale of the evidence required for this case was significant, with the commission noting that the index for the report alone ran to a vast length. Manchester City, which is owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) since their 2008 takeover, has consistently denied any wrongdoing throughout the multi-year legal process. Following the publication of the redacted report on Tuesday, the club maintains its innocence. Manchester City now has until 2 October to submit a formal appeal against the commission’s ruling. While the core bundle of documents “ran to many tens of thousands of pages”, the commission highlighted the scale of evidence it had to consider by pointing out that the index alone ran to more than 750 pages.
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