Manchester City have been found guilty of financial rule breaches covering almost a decade, with an independent commission concluding that the club used artificial commercial arrangements to disguise more than £830 million in funding.
The Premier League confirmed that City were found guilty of all charges relating to breaches of its financial regulations between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons.
According to the commission, the club used commercial agreements that did not reflect their true economic substance, allowing revenues to be inflated and costs reduced in its financial accounts.
City continue to reject the allegations and have until 2 October to lodge an appeal.
The Premier League published a redacted version of the commission’s findings on Tuesday, after it emerged last week that City had been found guilty on the majority of the financial charges originally brought against them.
Commission Details £830m Funding Structure
The case covered more than 100 alleged individual breaches across four broad categories.
The commission found City guilty on every charge apart from one connected with the club’s cooperation with the Premier League investigation. It also concluded that several important witnesses linked to the club had provided inaccurate evidence, with some evidence found to have been knowingly false or dishonest.
The disputed commercial arrangements formed part of what the commission described as a disguised funding structure worth £830.69 million.
Across City’s Premier League title-winning seasons in 2011-12, 2013-14 and 2017-18, the club recorded £360 million in sponsorship income. The commission found that only £43 million represented genuine sponsor payments, while the remainder was effectively owner funding presented through commercial deals.
The findings also concluded that the arrangements helped City avoid reporting what would otherwise have been the largest single-season loss recorded by a Premier League club in 2009-10.
City have been owned by Abu Dhabi United Group since the club’s 2008 takeover.
Evidence Ran to Tens of Thousands of Pages
The scale of the investigation was substantial. The commission said the evidence index alone exceeded 750 pages, while the central document bundle contained many tens of thousands of pages.
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said the ruling established the facts surrounding City’s conduct during the period and supported the league’s decision to pursue the case.
The league maintains that enforcing rules approved by its clubs is necessary to protect competitive fairness and the integrity of the competition.
Any punishment will be determined separately at another private hearing before the independent commission. Premier League regulations require that process to remain confidential.
Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Lisa Nandy described the findings as extremely serious and said they were likely to concern both City supporters and the wider Premier League fanbase.
Former Manchester City chairman David Bernstein, who led the club from 1998 to 2003, said the case could have major implications for the credibility of the competition.
Bernstein argued that, if the findings survive City’s appeal, any punishment would need to go beyond a financial penalty and reflect the scale of the breaches identified by the commission.