Manchester City guilty over Premier League charges after £900m of ‘sham’ contracts
Manchester City breached Premier League financial rules by creating ‘sham’ contracts to help inflate revenue and reduce costs by more than £900m over a nine-year period, an independent commission found
The Premier League has confirmed Manchester City 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 £900m.
In a bombshell announcement the Premier League revealed an independent commission had found City guilty of arranging “sham contracts” 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 spending limits.
Related: Manchester City’s ‘sham’ seasons: how they fared and who was in charge
The club were also found to have entered into “sham” image rights deals with players and the then manager Roberto Mancini to artificially inflate their earnings.
City have said they will appeal by Friday’s deadline “on the basis that the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe”. Their chief executive, Ferran Soriano, said in a video sent to employees that the decision was based on a “Premier League conspiracy theory”.
The appeal is expected to run alongside a sanctions hearing presided over by the independent commission, with the Premier League eager to conclude matters as quickly as possible.
The extraordinary scale of what Hull’s owner, Acun Ilicali, has described as City’s “financial doping” has sent shock waves throughout the world of football, leaving executives at other Premier League clubs stunned.
The Premier League’s chief executive, Richard Masters, described the case “as the most significant in Premier League history”. It seems inevitable it will lead to an unprecedented punishment, including in all probability a points deduction that will condemn City to relegation.
Although there is no direct precedent given the scale of City’s offences, Everton’s 10-point penalty for breaching profitability and sustainability rules by £19.5m 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 £5m the club overspent.
The commission made damning comments regarding the behaviour of City witnesses during the hearings. “Evidence 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,” it wrote, arguing that some witnesses had given evidence “they knew to be untrue and so had been dishonest”.
Interactive City were found to have operated a “disguised funding scheme” worth £830.6m over nine seasons, from 2009-10 to 2017-18, and to have hidden costs by a further £70m. In addition the club have been found guilty of multiple breaches of failing to cooperate with the Premier League and act in good faith. The commission concluded the club had made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the investigation.
