Manchester City found guilty of 114 charges involving £830m in 'sham' contracts

An independent commission has found Manchester City guilty of 114 of their 115 Premier League financial charges, determining that the club arranged fraudulent commercial contracts to conceal more than £830 million in secret funding across nine seasons, from 2009/10 to 2017/18. City have denied wrongdoing and immediately lodged an appeal.

The commission’s report stated that “a number of important club witnesses gave false evidence in key respects and that some knowingly gave untrue and dishonest evidence” — a damning assessment that goes beyond the financial breaches themselves.

The 115 charges, first brought by the Premier League in February 2023, covered a broad range of alleged rule breaches. Fifty-four related to failure to provide accurate and up-to-date financial information across the nine seasons in question, while a further 14 concerned the provision of inaccurate financial data. The remaining charges addressed associated matters tied to the wider scheme.

The case has its roots in a 2018 investigation by German outlet Der Spiegel, which published leaked documents — obtained by Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto via a phishing attack — alleging that City had artificially inflated sponsorship deal values to circumvent UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules. UEFA banned City from European competition for two years, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned that sanction. UEFA had previously fined City approximately £49 million in 2014 for separate FFP breaches, though more than half of that fine was later returned after the club demonstrated compliance.

The Premier League’s own investigation ran in parallel for several years before the 115 charges were formally filed. A private hearing before the independent commission took place in 2024, and the verdict emerged last month after nearly two years of silence.

The ruling has drawn immediate reactions across the football world. Several clubs involved in title races during the period in question have called for trophies to be redistributed, with former Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes publicly acknowledging his desire for an additional medal. UEFA has confirmed it is monitoring the situation and will wait for the appeals process to conclude before considering any action of its own.

City’s appeal means the case is far from over. The timeline for any final resolution — and any potential sporting sanctions — remains unclear, leaving the club’s domestic titles from the relevant period in a state of uncertainty that is unlikely to be resolved quickly.