Man City and Premier League each facing £100m bill as 115-charge case may already be at appeal stage

Manchester City and the Premier League are each believed to have spent more than £100m on the ongoing 115-charges legal case, with football finance expert Kieran Maguire raising the possibility that the proceedings may have already reached an appeal stage without any public announcement.

City were charged with 115 breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules in February 2023. A 12-week hearing concluded in December 2024, but the independent commission has yet to publish a ruling — and with the two-year mark since proceedings began now approaching, Maguire has offered a theory for the continued silence.

“I have no evidence to back this up, but we could be in a situation where a decision has been made on Manchester City and either the Premier League or Manchester City have immediately appealed,” Maguire said on the Rest is Football podcast. “We are now actually working our way through the appeal process to get a final, final answer.”

Maguire drew a parallel with Chelsea’s separate disciplinary case, in which the club faced 78 charges. In that instance, a verdict was reached and Chelsea appealed, but the existence of the appeal only became public knowledge after the fact. “We didn’t know that in terms of Chelsea,” he noted.

The sheer volume and complexity of the evidence involved has been cited as a key reason for the delay. Among City’s charges are 54 allegations of failing to provide accurate and up-to-date financial information between 2009 and 2018, as well as 14 alleged breaches relating to inaccurate financial reporting of player and manager compensation over the same period.

“We are probably talking hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pieces of evidence, and they have to be gone through with a fine-tooth comb,” Maguire said. “If there are 115 charges, there are 115 defences, so it makes it difficult. You have got three people sitting on the commission, all of whom are very high-powered people in their own right, so getting them into the same room at the same time over the course of the last 18-20 months has proven to be very difficult.”

City have consistently and strongly denied the allegations. In May, it was reported that a final verdict could still be as much as two years away, making this one of the longest-running disciplinary cases in English football history. Both Manchester City and the Premier League have been approached for comment.