Manchester City Face Relegation After Guilty of all Charges

Manchester City have officially been found guilty of serious breaches of Premier League financial rules spanning almost a decade, in what the league has described as the most significant disciplinary case in its history.

The Premier League confirmed on Tuesday that an independent Commission had found Manchester City guilty of all charges relating to serious financial breaches over nine seasons, covering the period from 2009/10 to 2017/18.

The Commission also upheld three of four charges relating to City’s failure to cooperate with the Premier League’s investigation.

According to the Premier League, the Commission found that Manchester City arranged what it described as “sham” contracts with a number of commercial partners and relied on other agreements which misrepresented the true arrangements between the parties.

The Commission concluded that these arrangements were used to artificially increase the club’s reported revenue and reduce its reported costs.

It also found that Manchester City filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators.

The financial scale of the findings is significant.

According to Reuters, the Commission found that the arrangements had the effect of inflating City’s revenues and reducing its costs by more than £900 million, equivalent to approximately FJ$2.7 billion at recent exchange rates.

The Commission found that a number of City’s commercial sponsorship arrangements formed part of a disguised funding scheme in which sponsors were required to provide only part of the sponsorship amounts recorded by the club.

The balance, according to the findings, was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd, which owned Manchester City.

Other arrangements funded by the ownership group were found to have enabled City to record lower operating expenses than it actually incurred.

The Commission ultimately concluded that Manchester City would have exceeded both Premier League and UEFA spending limits by a substantial amount had the arrangements been accurately reflected in its accounts.

The findings also extend beyond City’s financial reporting.

During the Premier League’s four-year investigation, the Commission found that Manchester City repeatedly breached its obligations to cooperate with the league and act in utmost good faith.

The Commission concluded that the club had made “concerted efforts to stop and frustrate” the investigation.

Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters said the decision established what had occurred at Manchester City during the period under investigation.

He said the findings showed that the club had systematically breached Premier League rules for nearly a decade and described the disciplinary case and decision as the most significant in Premier League history.

The investigation began in December 2018 before formal proceedings were launched in February 2023.

An independent Commission subsequently conducted a 42-day hearing, which concluded in December 2024.

What happens to Manchester City now?

Despite the guilty findings, no punishment has yet been imposed.

The Premier League confirmed that sanctions will be determined separately at another hearing before the independent Commission.

This means reports suggesting that Manchester City have already been relegated, had points deducted or been stripped of titles are premature. None of those sanctions has currently been announced by the Premier League.

The club also retains a right of appeal and has until Friday, October 2 to exercise that right.

Manchester City have already made clear that they intend to challenge the decision.

In an official statement following publication of the findings, the club said it was “disappointed and surprised” by the Commission’s opinion and maintained that it was innocent.

City said it possessed what it described as a comprehensive body of evidence supporting its position and argued that the Commission’s decision contained material errors of law, principle and fact.

The club confirmed it would pursue the appeal avenues available to it and stressed that the Premier League process remained ongoing.

The Premier League, meanwhile, says it intends to move through the remaining sanction and appeal processes as quickly as possible.

For Manchester City, one of the longest-running and most consequential financial cases in world football has therefore reached a major turning point.

The allegations are no longer merely allegations: an independent Premier League Commission has now made findings against the club.