Manchester City Found Guilty Of More Than 100 Financial Rule Breaches

Remember when the Premier League charged Manchester City with over 100 instances of financial maneuvering which ran afoul of league rules? It’s possible you’ve forgotten all about that, since the league’s investigation began all the way back in 2019, and the charges were announced in 2023. The long timeline here is owed to City’s continued refusal to cooperate with the Premier League and the efforts of their expensive legal teams. But time moves forward nonetheless, and so at long last we hare here, with The Athletic’s David Ornstein reporting that City has been found guilty of almost every charge it faced.

Since it has been three years since the charges were first announced, a refresher is in order. The case is based on the Premier League’s belief that City consistently broke the league’s financial rules between the period of 2009 to 2018. The start of this period coincides with City being purchased by Abu Dhabi United Group, which has since funneled billions of petrostate dollars into the club, transforming it from a perennial also-ran into one of the most powerful and successful teams in world soccer history. According to the Premier League, a significant portion of those billions of dollars were improperly spent, and broke league rules. City has been accused of doing things like inflating sponsorship revenue in order to stay compliant with Financial Fair Play rules, to paying former manager Roberto Mancini a second secret salary.

These are the sort of things that everyone always assumed the richest clubs were doing, and for a long time it seemed like the Premier League was happy to turn a blind eye. But the charges that were filed against City in 2023 coincided with the league suddenly becoming very focused on tightening and enforcing its financial rules—the threat of government regulation might have played a role in that—and in recent years obeying those rules has become a point of emphasis for clubs throughout the Premier League. Nottingham Forest and Everton were both hit with hefty points deductions for running afoul of the rules in ways that pale in comparison to what City is accused of doing, and the stagnation of clubs like Newcastle and Aston Villa can be partially blamed on their hesitance to spend too much money on players.