Manchester City have been found guilty of the vast majority of more than a hundred charges relating to breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules, a verdict that has thrown English football into turmoil. The decision was delivered in what is the biggest disciplinary case in the history of the sport, and it leaves the serial champions facing the possibility of relegation from the Premier League or expulsion from the competition altogether.
Neither side was willing to publicly confirm the outcome on Friday, and an appeal from City is expected to be pursued imminently. Two years after hearings first began, however, there is now some clarity about the scale of the club’s rule-breaking.
The 134 charges made against City cover the seasons from 2009-10 to 2022-23, with the most serious relating to claims that the club failed to provide accurate financial information to the league during that period. Across those seasons City won seven Premier League titles, a Champions League, three FA Cups and six League Cups.
A City spokesperson said: “The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements to be completed, and subject to strict confidentiality. As such Manchester City FC’s position remains consistent with the club’s statement of February 2023. The club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis that the Premier League board and executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator, free from partisan influence.”
The Premier League declined to comment, citing the confidential nature of the case. Club executives are understood to have learned about the outcome following a shareholders’ meeting in central London on Thursday, and subsequently signed non-disclosure agreements.
Andy Burnham, asked about the news on Friday evening, told ITV Granada Reports: “I’ve only just been made aware of it – I think these are reports at this stage. But if they’re confirmed, obviously I will want to look at the report of the independent commission. People shouldn’t jump to those kind of conclusions. I know, this has been a long process between the club and the Premier League. I think quite a contested process. So I don’t think it’s as simple as jumping to conclusions. I think we would all need to study the independent commission’s report in some considerable detail before reaching any conclusions.”
The verdict was reached more than three and a half years after the 134 charges were first brought, and more than two years since disciplinary hearings began. Under the Premier League rulebook, any party wishing to appeal a decision by a judicial panel must do so by email within 14 days of that decision being announced. Rule W.86 sets out that any hearing should conclude no longer than 12 weeks after the first appeal is submitted, and that any decision by the appeal board must be published, alongside full written reasons, within 30 days of the conclusion of the hearing.
Should City fail in any appeal, the judicial panel would then be expected to produce its verdict on the level of sanction applied to the club. Premier League rule W.64 lists the punishments available to a panel: alongside a fine, a disciplinary committee could suspend a club from competition, levy a points deduction, or, in the most extreme circumstances, expel a club from competition altogether.
Such is the scale of the charges that there is no direct comparison to be made with other disciplinary cases. The recent case involving Chelsea, found to have breached the FA’s rules on agents on 74 occasions, resulted only in a cash fine of £10m. Chelsea, however, were adjudged not to have gained significant sporting advantage from their actions and were praised for self-reporting the misdemeanours, which had occurred under the ownership of Roman Abramovich. Neither of those factors would appear to apply in the City case, given the systemic claims of financial misreporting and the fact that a majority of the charges related to a failure to comply with league rules.
The unprecedented catalogue of charges related to five distinct areas of alleged rule-breaking. More than 80 charges concerned a club’s obligation to act in “utmost good faith” when relaying information to the Premier League and to give complete disclosure of any information requested — claims that pointed towards the league’s belief that City had given an inaccurate picture of the club’s financial situation and withheld documents that might have cast greater light on it. The rest related to alleged breaches of profitability and sustainability rules and the related Uefa financial fair play regulations, while 20 charges concerned the club’s obligation to provide full details of remuneration, with breaches claimed in the rules relating to the payment of players and managers.
The extent of the charge sheet reflected a process that had been a decade in the making. Uefa found City in breach of FFP in 2014, a decision that resulted in the club paying a €20m fine, and the Football Leaks affair — in which millions of private documents relating to football clubs and players were hacked and made public in 2015 — led to reporting on City’s affairs and a new investigation from Uefa. By 2020, Uefa had suspended City from the Champions League for overstating its sponsorship revenue in its accounts, a suspension City overturned on appeal to the court of arbitration for sport. In December 2018 the Premier League began its own investigation into City, a highly secretive inquiry that required legal action by the Mail on Sunday to prove it was taking place and is believed to have been inspired by the Football Leaks revelations. Four years later, City were charged.