Man City plans to fight unprecedented guilty verdict

AP:

Manchester City have been found guilty of the vast majority of the 115 charges of alleged financial wrongdoing they faced, the Premier League confirmed yesterday, in one of the biggest scandals in English football history.

City, the dominant force in English football over the past 15 years and the current Premier League leaders, now face severe sanctions that could include a substantial points deduction or even expulsion from the world’s most popular football league, dealing a major blow to the club’s Abu Dhabi ownership.

The verdict by an independent commission, first reported by several British media outlets on Friday, “details how the club systematically broke Premier League rules for nearly a decade”, Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said. The case was initiated more than three years ago and stemmed from leaked club emails and documents that emerged in 2018.

City said they were “disappointed and surprised” by the commission’s verdict, maintained they were “innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League”, and vowed to be “relentless” in pursuing an appeal.

The club was accused of a range of financial violations between 2009 and 2018, a period during which the former underachievers transformed themselves into one of the world’s most successful football teams, winning multiple Premier League titles and the UEFA Champions League.

The breaches included failing to provide accurate financial information, inflating the value of sponsorship agreements linked to Abu Dhabi, concealing payments that supplemented the salaries of managers and players, and violating financial regulations introduced by the Premier League and UEFA to promote sustainability and prevent clubs from spending beyond their means.

City also faced numerous charges of failing to cooperate with the investigation between 2018 and 2023.

“An independent commission has found Manchester City guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules over a nine-season period,” the league said, “and the majority of charges in relation to its failure to cooperate with the league’s investigation.”

Addressing the sponsorship agreements, the league said: “Manchester City arranged ‘sham’ contracts (which misrepresented the true agreement between the parties) with a number of its commercial partners, as well as relying on ‘sham’ agreements with others, to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs.

FOOTBALL REGULATORS

“The club,” the league added, “filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators.”

The league said the purpose of City’s “schemes” was to “artificially inflate the club’s revenues, and reduce its costs, by more than £900 million (US$1.19 billion) during the affected period, to appear to comply with financial rules”.

The findings suggest that City’s rise to the summit of English football, fuelled by investment from Abu Dhabi and supported by star-studded squads, was achieved, at least in part, through evasion of the league’s financial regulations.

The Premier League said sanctions would be determined at a separate hearing before the independent commission.

Any appeal by City must be lodged by Friday, according to the league.

Yesterday’s verdict is expected to have far-reaching consequences across English football and could trigger a series of legal claims from rival clubs seeking compensation for losses they believe resulted from City’s actions.

Questions also remain over the futures of leading players such as Erling Haaland and Rayan Cherki as well as the position of owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family. Since purchasing City in 2008, Sheikh Mansour has overseen the expansion of the City Football Group, which owns clubs including New York City FC and Melbourne City.

City have consistently maintained their innocence. When the charges were brought in 2023, the club said there was a “comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of its position”.

As recently as the weekend, chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak repeated the club’s belief in its case, saying there remained a “confidence and intent in proving the club’s innocence.”

Any appeal could ultimately reach the High Court in London if City argue that the process was unfair or lacked impartiality.