{"id":639897,"date":"2026-09-29T21:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T21:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/639897\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T21:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T21:06:09","slug":"manchester-city-guilty-of-premier-league-charges-after-900m-of-sham-contracts-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/639897\/","title":{"rendered":"Manchester City guilty of Premier League charges after \u00a3900m of \u2018sham\u2019 contracts \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Premier League<\/a> has confirmed Manchester City<\/a> have been found guilty of all charges of breaching its financial rules over a nine-year period, with the club found to have boosted their income by a staggering amount of more than \u00a3900 million.<\/p>\n

In a bombshell announcement, the Premier League revealed an independent commission had found City guilty of arranging \u201csham contracts\u201d with commercial partners to artificially inflate revenues and reduce costs, and of filing inaccurate accounts to hide the true state of their finances, which if accurately reported would have led to significant breaches of Premier League and Uefa<\/a> spending limits.<\/p>\n

The club were also found to have entered into \u201csham\u201d image rights deals with players and the then manager Roberto Mancini to artificially inflate their earnings.<\/p>\n

City have said they will appeal by Friday\u2019s deadline \u201con the basis that the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe\u201d. The club\u2019s chief executive, Ferran Soriano, said in a video to employees that the decision was based on a \u201cPremier League conspiracy theory\u201d.<\/p>\n

The appeal is expected to run aside a sanctions hearing presided over by the independent commission, with the Premier League eager to conclude matters as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

The extraordinary scale of what Hull\u2019s owner, Acun Ilicali, has described as City\u2019s \u201cfinancial doping\u201d has sent shock waves throughout the world of football, leaving executives at other Premier League clubs stunned.<\/p>\n

The Premier League\u2019s chief executive, Richard Masters, described the case \u201cas the most significant in Premier League history\u201d. It seems inevitable it will lead to an unprecedented punishment, likely including a points deduction that will condemn City to relegation.<\/p>\n

\"FileFile photo dated 02-09-2023 of Manchester City Chief Executive Officer Ferran Soriano who has been elected to the European Club Association (ECA) board. Issue date: Thursday September 7, 2023. PA Photo. See PA story SOCCER European. Photo credit should read Mike Egerton\/PA Wire. <\/p>\n

Although there is no direct precedent given the scale of City\u2019s offences, Everton\u2019s 10-point penalty for breaching profitability and sustainability rules by \u00a319.5 million over a period ending with the 2021-22 season was based on a Premier League tariff of six points for the initial breach, plus an additional point for every \u00a35 million the club overspent.<\/p>\n

The commission made damning comments regarding the behaviour of City witnesses during the hearings. \u201cEvidence given by a number of important factual witnesses called to give evidence on behalf of the club was false in a number of key respects,\u201d it wrote, arguing that some witnesses had given evidence \u201cthey knew to be untrue and so had been dishonest\u201d.<\/p>\n

City were found to have operated a \u201cdisguised funding scheme\u201d worth \u00a3830.6 million over nine seasons, from 2009-10 to 2017-18, and to have hidden costs by a further \u00a370 million. In addition the club have been found guilty of multiple breaches of failing to co-operate with the Premier League and act in good faith. The commission concluded the club had made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the investigation.<\/p>\n

The Premier League published a redacted 40-page \u201ccore decision\u201d from the independent commission, which has taken almost two years to produce after a 42-day hearing that concluded in December 2024.<\/p>\n

The league said: \u201cThe independent commission found City arranged \u2018sham\u2019 commercial deals with a number of its sponsors during the period, which were part of a disguised funding scheme, whereby those companies were only required to pay a portion of the relevant sponsorship fees. The remainder was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), which owned the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of the scheme, further \u2018sham\u2019 arrangements, funded by ADUG, were entered into to enable the club to record lower operating expenses than it actually incurred, as well as a \u2018sham\u2019 circular arrangement with Fordham, an entity that purchased the club\u2019s players\u2019 image rights, that was funded by ADUG.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of these schemes was found to have been to artificially inflate the club\u2019s revenues, and reduce its costs, by more than \u00a3900 million during the affected period, to appear to comply with financial rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe consequence of this, as the commission found, was that the club filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators.\u201d<\/p>\n

ADUG bought City on behalf of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan for \u00a3200 million in 2008, with the new owners making an immediate impact by paying \u00a332.5 million to sign the Brazilian superstar Robinho from Real Madrid. That was the start of a spending spree City struggled to afford with their existing revenues, and the independent commission concluded the only way to match the owners\u2019 ambitions for the club was for ADUG to \u201cprovide very significant funds by way of equity contribution\u201d.<\/p>\n

The commission report states that in 2010 City devised a scheme whereby sponsors would pay a \u201cbase sum\u201d and ADUG would pay a \u201ctagged sum\u201d, despite the base sum being the only true revenue. The recorded sponsorship fee would be the total of them both.<\/p>\n

\"PremierPremier League CEO Richard Masters. Photograph: Mike Egerton\/PA<\/p>\n

City\u2019s lawyers claimed that the \u201ctagged sum\u201d was a loan by the Abu Dhabi government on liabilities on sponsorship fees. The commission rejected that argument.<\/p>\n

The judgment is a huge victory for the Premier League and Masters. Despite the commission demonstrating that City breached Uefa\u2019s spending limits there appears little prospect of Uefa\u2019s case being revisited because there is a five-year statute of limitations on its disciplinary proceedings. Uefa\u2019s punishment of City in relation to alleged financial fair play breaches was largely overturned in 2020 by the court of arbitration for sport, which found \u201cmost of the alleged breaches were either not established or time-barred\u201d.<\/p>\n

Masters said: \u201cThe 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. It also vindicates the Premier League\u2019s decision to pursue this case against Manchester City.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said in relation to sanctions: \u201cNow we have the commission\u2019s decision, we are committed to moving swiftly through the remainder of the process, to provide certainty for the league, our clubs and fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Premier League clubs are surprised City have not reached an agreed sanction with the Premier League, given the judgment, but City continue to deny wrongdoing. \u201cManchester City FC is both disappointed and surprised by the opinion of the Premier League commission, that has been published today,\u201d the club said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe club is innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League and a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its positions, relating to this case. The club will therefore be relentless, and where necessary proactive, in any and all appropriate regulatory and legal forums.\u201d \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Premier League has confirmed Manchester City have been found guilty of all charges of breaching its financial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,8579,1102,112],"class_list":["post-639897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-manchester-city","tag-premier-league","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}