The independent commission has found Manchester City guilty of all but one of the charges brought against them by the Premier League, concluding that the club cheated deliberately and sought to cover it up with a campaign of calculated misinformation. The verdict, published on Friday, describes the Abu Dhabi United Group's reputation and integrity as lying in tatters after what is called the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on English football.
Findings of the commission
The commission found that City overstated income by around £855m and understated outgoings by around £66m over the nine years in question. Sponsorship deals were described as "shams" to obscure investment and overstated by £830m, as part of "a plan to disguise shareholder funding … as 'commercial partner revenue'". The Fordham Agreement, an arrangement by which an entity bought player image rights, was "little more than a front".
The panel found that City made "concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the PL investigation", and that evidence given by a number of important factual witnesses was "false in a number of key respects", with some witnesses having given evidence they knew to be untrue. The one charge on which City were not found guilty was of breaching "duties of cooperation" with the Premier League in relation to one tranche of accusations.
Club's response and next steps
City continue to maintain their innocence, issuing a statement insisting that "the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe". Chief executive Ferran Soriano released a video vowing that the club would appeal – it has until Friday to do so – and pursue "all other legal avenues" to prove its innocence. He dismissed the Premier League's charges as "a conspiracy theory" and claimed they were based on "a single false accusation" of diverting funds from the owner to the club under the guise of sponsorship payments.
Any sanction will be addressed separately in a further hearing with the independent commission. Everton were docked a total of eight points over two accounting windows for an inadvertent breach of profitability and sustainability rules amounting to around £20m, having cooperated with the investigation. The verdict's findings suggest the punishment for City will have to be extremely severe, with the commission noting that this was not a cock-up but a calculated attempt to circumvent the rules.
Impact on the Premier League
The verdict makes for astonishing reading, with the commission's findings showing deception on a massive scale. The Premier League is made up of its 20 constituent clubs, and City have cheated each of the other 19. There must now be a very good argument for expulsion, as the continued denials only enhance the sense that this is a club that has no respect for the regulations. How can City, at least under the current ownership, ever be trusted again, and how can their name appear on the Premier League's roll of honour after they have cheated as they have been shown to do between 2009-10 and 2017-18?
