Manchester City have been found guilty of all charges related to breaches of Premier League financial rules between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons. An independent commission concluded the club arranged “sham contracts” and relied on “sham agreements to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs.”
The sham commercial deals were part of a “disguised funding scheme” totalling £830.69m, according to the commission’s report. City recorded £360m in sponsor fees in the three seasons they won the Premier League (2011-12, 2013-14, and 2017-18); only £43m was legitimate, with the rest coming from their owners and disguised.
The Sham Contracts
The commission said the “relevant sponsorship agreements were found to be shams, or at minimum did not reflect their economic substance.” It also described “deliberate or reckless conduct intended to circumvent the Premier League rules,” noting the scheme allowed City “to avoid recording what would otherwise have been the largest single-season loss in Premier League history in 2009-10.”
The index alone ran to more than 750 pages, with the core bundle of documents running to “many tens of thousands of pages.” The commission’s report was published in a redacted form on Tuesday by the Premier League.
City are owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group, who took over the club in 2008; referred to as “ADUG” in the report. The club denies wrongdoing and has until 2 October to submit an appeal.
Reaction From All Sides
Richard Masters, chief executive of the Premier League, said: “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.”
Lisa Nandy MP, Culture, Media & Sport secretary, called the report “incredibly stark” and said it “is causing a lot of concern for Man City fans and all fans of Premier League football.”
David Bernstein, who was City chairman between 1998-2003, said the “credibility of the Premier League is at stake” after the verdict.
“It is damning beyond belief, they’ve [the Premier League] talked about producing false documentation and a panel of behaviour over a number of years which is quite unbelievable,” Bernstein said.
“There always a school of thought with lawyers that you always deny, deny, deny, until the last, but this a football club that is part of a league, and the whole credibility of the Premier League and competition is at stake here. This is very serious and I wonder if the accusations are so, that whether some of these issues might need to be referred to authorities outside of the league.”
“The sanctions cannot just be financial, money doesn’t mean much to the Abu Dhabi owners. If this all stands up and the appeal fails, Manchester City cannot stay in the Premier League, they have to suffer a serious penalty that takes them out of the Premier League and I say that as a supporter and fan of 70 years.”
What This Means
A club that won the title three times in four years inflated its revenues by hundreds of millions of pounds through sham sponsor deals. The scheme spanned nearly a decade.
The league’s decision to pursue this case was vindicated, but the damage to the game’s integrity is real. Fans are concerned, and the threat of expulsion hangs over the club.
| Charge Category | Finding |
|---|---|
| Breaches of Premier League financial rules | Guilty of all charges |
| Sham sponsorship agreements | Found to be shams |
| Deliberate or reckless conduct | Found to exist |
| Disguised funding scheme | Totalling £830.69m |
- Total disguised funding scheme: £830.69m (per the commission’s report)
- Recorded sponsor fees: £360m
- Legitimate sponsor fees: £43m
- Years covered: 2009-10 to 2017-18
- Appeal deadline: 2 October
The case now moves to the next hearing, where the sanction will be addressed. City can appeal, but Bernstein’s warning carries weight.
Source material: “Man City guilty of 'sham' contracts and misleading accounts,” the BBC.
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