Manchester City have said they will appeal after the Premier League issued a statement on the club being found guilty of financial breaches. The club expressed its “disappointment” and “surprise” at the opinion of the Premier League Commission, published on Tuesday.
News emerged last week that City had been found guilty of all but one of the 115 charges brought against the club by the English top flight. The charges relate to alleged financial breaches between 2009 and 2018, during which time City rose to become one of the Premier League’s dominant clubs in title races, as well as in Europe.
Club maintains innocence
City have maintained their innocence throughout the whole process, with the Premier League first charging the club back in 2023. In their statement published on Tuesday, the Premier League confirmed that City were found guilty of “all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League's financial rules over a nine-season period, and the majority of charges in relation to its failure to co-operate with the League's investigation”.
City have now responded with their own statement, maintaining their innocence, which states: “Manchester City FC is both disappointed and surprised by the opinion of the Premier League Commission, that has been published today.
“The Club is innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League and a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its positions, relating to this case. The Club will therefore be relentless, and where necessary proactive, in any and all appropriate regulatory and legal forums.
“The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements uncompleted. Manchester City FC will now pursue the appeal avenues open to it, on the basis that the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe.
“The Club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis that the Premier League Board and Executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator, free from partisan influence.
“The Club is obviously restricted in what it can say further until all future proceedings are complete.”
Four main breach categories
Within their statement, the Premier League outlined the four main categories where City were judged to have been found in breach. These are:
- “Manchester City arranged 'sham' contracts (which misrepresented the true agreement between the parties) with a number of its commercial partners, as well as relying on 'sham' agreements with others, to artificially inflate the club's revenues and reduce its costs.
- “The club filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators.
- “Manchester City was significantly in breach of both the Premier League's and UEFA's spending limits.
- “During the Premier League's investigation, Manchester City committed multiple breaches of its duties of co-operation and utmost good faith towards the League (three of the four alleged breaches were upheld).”
Richard Masters, Chief Executive of the Premier League, also said in the statement: “The core decision establishes the facts of what happened at Manchester City during this period. It details how the club systematically broke Premier League Rules for nearly a decade.
“It also vindicates the Premier League's decision to pursue this case against Manchester City. While the process to date has been both long and difficult, the League has remained determined that the facts be established independently.
“It is a key responsibility of the Premier League to ensure that the Rules, approved by the clubs themselves, are upheld to protect the integrity of the competition. It is paramount that the League remains competitive and fair for all clubs and for the fans. We take that role extremely seriously.
“This disciplinary case, and this decision, are the most significant in Premier League history. There are elements of the case that remain to be decided, including, importantly, what sanction must follow for these breaches. Now we have the Commission's decision, we are committed to moving swiftly through the remainder of the process, to provide certainty for the League, our clubs and fans.”
City hold the right to appeal the verdict delivered by the independent commission, with Friday, October 2, established as the deadline.
