And now it's official: according to the Premier League's three-person independent commission, Manchester City have been found guilty of inflated revenues and lowered costs through "sham" (the league's own remark) sponsorship deals, self-dealing image rights contracts with phony companies and off-the-books payments.
This inflated reporting enabled them to disguise more than £900 million ($1.18 billion) as legitimate commercial revenue over a nine-year period when, in fact, it was nothing more than the owner, Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), dipping into the family coffers. In so doing, they severely breached the Financial Sustainability rules laid out by the Premier League and UEFA -- regulations they publicly endorsed and claimed to support. Along the way, among the 100+ charges they were also found guilty of false accounting -- which is somewhat inevitable when you misstate the source and scope of your income -- failing to cooperate with investigators and failing to "act in the utmost good faith." All in all, a breathtaking set of findings.
After Friday's news that City had been found guilty had broken, but was not yet official, City chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak issued a statement Saturday saying "our confidence and intent in proving the club's innocence is just as strong as when this began." He also made reference to "irrefutable evidence," which felt odd when he knew it had been refuted just 48 hours earlier by the independent commission. City are entitled to appeal the decision by this Friday, though it's worth noting that no new evidence can be brought in as part of the appeal process.
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We are not privy to the entire judgement -- partly because it's freakishly long and dense, partly due to the Premier League's confidentiality rules -- but the 40-page "Core Decision," even with its myriad redactions, illustrates quite clearly the case against City and doesn't pull punches in terms of its language, describing City's actions as a "sham" on several occasions.
For those who have followed the case over the past 15 years, covered the settlement agreement with UEFA in 2014 when City were first punished for breaching Financial Fair Play rules (an agreement brokered by one Gianni Infantino in an earlier life) and covered the subsequent UEFA ban in February 2020 and City's successful appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) that same summer, not much of this is new. Most of it was there in Der Spiegel's investigation into the Football Leaks documents in 2018, and it was those revelations that prompted the Premier League's investigation.
What was new -- because over the past 15 years, the club has never addressed any specific charge other than to repeat ad nauseam that they were compliant with all regulations -- was some of their arguments. Most striking, perhaps, is how they justified the fact that between 2009-10 and 2017-18, they claimed to have received some £949.94 million ($1.254 billion) in commercial revenue from Abu Dhabi sponsors, but only £119.25m was actually paid by the partners themselves. The rest came from ADUG.
City's defence (76b on page 21) was that "from time to time," their commercial sponsors would apply for financial assistance from the Abu Dhabi government to meet their financial commitments, and that each time the Abu Dhabi government wired them money. Exactly, as it happened, in the amount they needed to meet their sponsor commitments to City.
ADUG, City's majority owner, is distinct and separate from the Abu Dhabi government, according to ADUG themselves. But it's not lost on anyone that ADUG's owner, Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, also happens to be a member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi, vice-president of the UAE and the little brother of the current president of the country.
As legal defences go, if it sounds a little desperate to you, you're not alone. The Independent Commission found that it was an "explanation" that had been "concocted well after the event in an attempt to obscure and conceal the realities of the Disguise Funding Scheme."
The "Core Decision" also touches upon other City revenue obfuscation schemes. Like giving their manager at the time, Roberto Mancini, an additional contract as a consultant to one of their clubs in Abu Dhabi, thereby lowering the salary paid by City without affecting his total compensation package. Or the Fordham scheme, where ADUG sets up (and funds) a company (described in the "Core Decision" as "a front for ADUG") to buy and exploit the image rights of players from City themselves for inflated amounts.
It's worth remembering here that without the documents that were leaked by a young Portuguese guy named Rui Pinto -- who may or may not be a hacker though he has always denied it, saying he was handed the documents -- most likely none of this would have ever come to light.
So what comes next?
City will presumably lodge their appeal and, in the meantime, the Commission will issue their sanctions, which could include everything from relegation to stripped titles, from transfer freezes to massive fines and all of the above. Once the sanctions are in, a new three-person Independent Panel will convene and hear the appeal. The sanctions themselves obviously won't be enforced until the appeals process is concluded, which, judging by the glacial pace of events -- the "Core Decision" references that hearings took place in the final quarter of 2024 -- might not be until well into 2027 or beyond.
It won't end there. A number of Premier League clubs have filed legal documents to reserve the right to pursue City for compensation in the courts if they're found guilty. It's not just about lost titles -- it's about lost revenue, and City's spending driving up costs for everyone.
There is one line in the "Core Decision" that offers a little bit of hope. Maybe it's a bread crumb from the panel, suggesting what they hope the best possible outcome might be. Article 70 states that "There was no evidence that [REDACTED] authorised the operation... and so went on without his knowledge."
Who are they talking about?
Is it Khaldoon Al-Mubarak, the chairman? Could it be Mansour himself? Could it be somebody high enough up the Abu Dhabi food chain that could legitimately say: "Enough! We're obviously not getting away with this, there's no evidence that I was involved so I'm putting a stop to this. I'm calling up the Premier League and the affected clubs and their owners, most of whom are fellow billionaires anyway, I'm dumping all the responsibility on my lawyers, accountants and club executives and I'm going to see if there's a plea bargain to be had."
It's a far-fetched thought, and it's also hard to see what a plea bargain might look like -- at least one that would satisfy other clubs and their fan bases. It would need to be painful for City not just financially, but in sporting terms too. Then again, if there's one thing the owners aren't lacking it's money and, lest we forget, City's fan base -- who have endured relegation to the third flight before and come back stronger -- are resilient. But it might just offer a way out and spare the Premier League another protracted legal battle.
If not, if City lose the appeal and the acrimony continues, the knowledge that nearly a decade of Premier League football was, in many ways, a sham, is going to be a body blow. Not so much for fans of other clubs -- yes, they'll moan about lost titles and relegations and whatnot -- because most concluded a long time ago that City were guilty.
But for City fans themselves, who were lied to all this time and who put their trust in a lie. Some won't care. Many will, but we'll all have to live with the fallout.
