An independent Premier League commission has ruled: Manchester City has been found guilty of 114 of the 115 charges of financial regulation breaches brought against the club. Manchester City is considering appeals after the verdict and has announced it will appeal the decision.
The sanction, meanwhile, has not yet been set. An independent commission must still rule, after hearing from the Premier League and Manchester City, before a final decision is handed down. That decision will itself be subject to appeal, by both parties.
Eight years of investigation
The charges, initially numbering 115 and later raised to 130, mainly concern the presentation of the club's accounts between 2009 and 2018, with other complaints extending up to the 2022-23 season. The case originates from the Football Leaks revelations in 2015, which prompted UEFA to reopen a file on the club. The Premier League's investigation, for its part, was opened in February 2023. It took eight years to reach this verdict.
This is not the first time Manchester City has been sanctioned for similar matters. In 2014, UEFA imposed a fine of 20 million euros for breaching Financial Fair Play. In 2020, a two-year suspension from European competitions and a fine of 30 million euros were handed down, before being overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
A record under scrutiny
Between 2009-10 and 2022-23, a period that partly overlaps with that of the alleged breaches, Manchester City won seven English league titles, one Champions League, three FA Cups and six League Cups. According to Corriere dello Sport, the sanctions the commission could consider range from a points penalty to relegation, up to the extreme possibility of expulsion from the Premier League, with the possibility that some titles could be revoked.
One precedent is worrying the club: Everton was ordered to pay nearly 40 million pounds to Burnley, after a commission found it had gained a sporting advantage from a breach of financial rules. Four clubs, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham, notified Manchester City as early as 2024 of the possibility of claiming compensation. According to the Times, some internal estimates could exceed 100 million pounds sterling per club, linked in particular to lost Champions League revenue.
Manchester City disputes the validity of the process. The club believes it is still formally ongoing and claims it was entitled to a fair trial before an authority it says it wants to be 'independent, impartial and balanced.'
The verdict has also had its celebrity echo: Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York and an Arsenal supporter, posted the figure '114' on X, a barely veiled dig at his beloved club's rival.
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