Man City guilty of 'sham' contracts and misleading accounts

Manchester City arranged “sham contracts” with a number of its commercial partners as part of a scheme to disguise secret funding of more than £830m, the Premier League says.

The League confirmed that City have been found guilty of all charges related to breaches of Premier League financial rules between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons.

An independent commission found that, during that time period, the club arranged the “sham contracts” as well as “relying on sham agreements to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs”.

The club continues to deny any wrongdoing and have until 2 October to submit an appeal.

News broke last week that City had been found guilty of breaking the majority of the 115 financial rules they were accused of breaching, but on Tuesday the Premier League published a redacted version of the commission’s report.

The commission’s report said the charges “concerned well over 100 alleged individual breaches of Premier League Rules across four broad charge categories”.

It also found the club guilty of all charges except one relating to non-cooperation with the Premier League investigation and said that “a number of important Club witnesses gave false evidence in key respects and that some knowingly gave untrue and dishonest evidence”.

The sham commercial deals were described as being part of a “disguised funding scheme” to the scale of £830.69m.

City recorded £360m in sponsor fees in the three seasons they won the Premier League – 2011-12, 2013-14, and 2017-18. Only £43m of it was legitimate – the rest came from their owners and was disguised.

“The relevant sponsorship agreements were found to be shams, or at minimum did not reflect their economic substance,” the commission said.

It also describes “deliberate or reckless conduct intended to circumvent the Premier League rules” and that the “sham” scheme devised by City allowed the club “to avoid recording what would otherwise have been the largest single-season loss in Premier League history in 2009-10”.

The commission highlighted the scale of evidence it had to consider by pointing out that the index alone ran to more than 750 pages, while the core bundle of documents “ran to many tens of thousands of pages”.

City are owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group, who took over the club in 2008 and are referred to as “ADUG” in the commission’s report.

Richard Masters, chief executive of the Premier League, said: “The 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’s decision to pursue this case against Manchester City. While the process to date has been both long and difficult, the League has remained determined that the facts be established independently.

“It is a key responsibility of the Premier League to ensure that the Rules, approved by the clubs themselves, are upheld to protect the integrity of the competition. It is paramount that the League remains competitive and fair for all clubs and for the fans. We take that role extremely seriously.”

The Premier League also said that City’s sanction “will be addressed separately in a further hearing with the independent commission”.

The League’s rules state that the hearing must remain private and confidential.

Lisa Nandy MP, the Culture, Media & Sport secretary, told the BBC: “It’s incredibly serious, the Premier League report is incredibly stark.

“This is causing a lot of concern for Man City fans and all fans of Premier League football.”

David Bernstein, who was City chairman between 1998-2003, said the “credibility of the Premier League is at stake” after the verdict.

“It is damning beyond belief, they’ve [the Premier League] talked about producing false documentation and a panel of behaviour over a number of years which is quite unbelievable.

“There always a school of thought with lawyers that you always deny, deny, deny, until the last, but this a football club that is part of a league, and the whole credibility of the Premier League and competition is at stake here. This is very serious and I wonder if the accusations are so, that whether some of these issues might need to be referred to authorities outside of the league.

“The sanctions cannot just be financial, money doesn’t mean much to the Abu Dhabi owners. If this all stands up and the appeal fails, Manchester City cannot stay in the Premier League, they have to suffer a serious penalty that takes them out of the Premier League and I say that as a supporter and fan of 70 years.”

What have Manchester City said?

In its own statement, the club said: “Manchester City FC is both disappointed and surprised by the opinion of the Premier League Commission, that has been published today.

“The 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.

“The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements uncompleted. Manchester City FC will now pursue the appeal avenues open to it, on the basis that the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe.

“The Club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis that the Premier League Board and Executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator, free from partisan influence.

“The Club is obviously restricted in what it can say further until all future proceedings are complete.”

Manchester City chief executive officer Ferran Soriano declined to comment when approached by BBC Sport but later issued a video statement via the club’s own channels in which he criticised a “Premier League conspiracy theory” and insisted the club would be “vindicated”.

Timeline of events

November 2018: Football Leaks allegations emerge with Der Spiegel publishing claims Manchester City breached financial fair play rules.

March 2019: Uefa launches a formal investigation off the back of Der Spiegel’s findings.

May 2019: City criticise the investigation and launch an appeal process.

November 2019: The Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) deems City’s appeal inadmissible.

February 2020: Uefa announces a two-year ban for City from European competitions and a €30m fine.

July 2020: City’s European ban is overturned after an appeal to Cas.

July 2021: City lose a jurisdiction ruling that allows the media to report the Premier League is continuing to investigate the champions for alleged financial breaches.

April 2022: Der Spiegel publishes a fresh report claiming the Premier League has been investigating the club for three years, providing detailed claims.

February 2023: The Premier League charges City with 115 financial breaches.

September 2024: The start of a 10-week hearing between the Premier League and City on the 115 charges.

February 2025: City manager Pep Guardiola says the club expect to learn the verdict “within one month”. Guardiola left the Etihad at the end of last season.

25 September 2026: Reports emerge that a verdict has been reached, with sources telling the BBC that City have been found guilty of breaking the majority of the charges.

29 September 2026: Premier League releases its findings via an independent commission and confirms the guilty verdicts.

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