{"id":865771,"date":"2026-09-30T10:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T10:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/865771\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T10:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T10:50:14","slug":"man-city-micah-richards-devastated-after-reading-premier-league-verdict-on-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/865771\/","title":{"rendered":"Man City: Micah Richards ‘devastated’ after reading Premier League verdict on charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Manchester City<\/a> defender Micah Richards says he felt “absolutely devastated” after reading the Premier League’s “damning” guilty verdict on the club’s financial charges.<\/p>\n

An independent commission found that City arranged “sham contracts”<\/a> with a number of commercial partners as part of a scheme to disguise secret funding of more than \u00a3830m.<\/p>\n

The league confirmed City have been found guilty of all charges related to breaches of financial rules between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons, and all but one in relation to failure to co-operate with the investigation.<\/p>\n

The club continue to deny any wrongdoing and have until 2 October to submit an appeal.<\/p>\n

During that nine-year period the Sky Blues won the Premier League three times, with Richards part of their title-winning squad in 2011-12.<\/p>\n

“The reports were troubling,” he said on The Rest is Football podcast. “I saw the words which were used by the Premier League in ‘sham contracts’ and I felt absolutely devastated.<\/p>\n

“I was at that club since I was 14 years old, I would die for that club. I achieved my dream at Manchester City<\/a>, but then to hear these reports, and not only me as an ex-player, but the fans, what they have to go through, absolutely devastating.”<\/p>\n

While Richards was part of the City’s youth academy he lived in ‘digs’ with a local family who are long-term supporters of the club.<\/p>\n

The 38-year-old added: “My digs man, he rang me and he was literally in tears and asking me about information, which I don’t know. I haven’t got the answers to tell him.<\/p>\n

“That’s someone who’s supported the club for 60-odd years and the uncertainty around it is just heartbreaking.<\/p>\n

“To have a headline of this nature for a club that I love so much, it’s been difficult. If you listen to the reports, they are damning.<\/p>\n

“I feel saddened, I feel angry, I feel a little bit confused because, on the other side, you have City’s side of the story.”<\/p>\n

City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said in a statement<\/a> on Saturday that the club is still confident of proving its innocence, while on Tuesday chief executive Ferran Soriano said in a video message, external<\/a> to staff and players that “irrefutable evidence” had been “ignored” by the commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Manchester City defender Micah Richards says he felt “absolutely devastated” after reading the Premier League’s “damning” guilty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-865771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}