Manchester City found guilty of overstating income by £830m through 'Project Longbow' scheme

Manchester City have been found guilty of overstating their income by more than £830m through a scheme the club internally called ‘Project Longbow’, an independent commission ruled on Tuesday, finding them in breach of Premier League financial rules across nine seasons from 2009-10 to 2017-18.

In a 40-page document, the Premier League described City’s conduct as involving “extremely serious, significant, sustained and intentional or reckless breaches of rules critical to the proper and fair operation” of the competition. The club are set to appeal the verdict.

At the centre of the findings is what the commission repeatedly labelled a series of “sham” commercial deals with club sponsors. Under the arrangement, those companies were only required to pay a portion of the stated sponsorship fees, with the remainder effectively funnelled in from Abu Dhabi United Group Investment and Development Ltd (ADUG), the club’s owner.

The commission identified one company, referred to as “Fordham”, as being “in reality little more than a front” for ADUG to inject additional funds into the club while concealing their true origin. This became known as the Fordham Arrangement.

While the commission accepted that Project Longbow was broadly a multi-strand initiative aimed at boosting revenues and reducing operating losses — with many elements deemed legitimate — it concluded that the Fordham Arrangement was not. It described the scheme as “a further device by which ADUG funds could be paid into the club in a manner that concealed their true origin” and which allowed the club “to remove operating expenses from its financial statements”.

The commission stated plainly: “The club’s financial statements for the seasons between 2009-10 and 2017-18 did not show a true and fair view of the club’s financial position. The club’s income across those years was consequently hugely overstated by over £830m.”

The hearing was one of the most extensive in English football history, drawing factual evidence from 27 witnesses across 42 hearing days in the final quarter of 2024, with a core bundle of documents running to “many tens of thousands of pages”. The commission acknowledged the verdict had taken considerably longer to produce than anticipated.

City’s appeal means the question of sanctions — which could range from points deductions to fines or, in the most severe scenarios, expulsion — remains unresolved. The case has cast a long shadow over the club’s era of domestic dominance and is likely to continue doing so throughout the appeals process.