FOUL PLAY: Manchester City’s ‘sham’ deals leave Premier League in uncharted territory

Guilty on all charges of breaching financial rules doesn’t even begin to describe the systemic scale of deceit Manchester City Football Club practised while filling a room with trophies. Trophies that are now forever tainted and might still be retrospectively rescinded.

On Tuesday, 29 September the Premier League published an independent commission’s findings, exposing how the club deceived its auditors and regulators between 2009 and 2018.

It gave jaw-dropping details that have shaken the Premier League to the core.

Some might say this is an English, at most, British problem. But it is a global issue.

The Premier League is the richest in the world. And soccer is the most played, most watched and most participated in sport on the planet. When the organisation at the very tip of the wealth pyramid is thrown into such turmoil, the ripples will be felt across the game globally.

The commission found that City arranged “sham” contracts that misrepresented the true agreements with several commercial partners and relied on similar agreements with others to inflate its revenue and reduce costs artificially, the league said.

It found that several sponsors were required to pay only part of the fees recorded in the relevant agreements, with the balance supplied by the club’s owner, Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG).

The commission also identified arrangements funded by ADUG that allowed City to record lower operating expenses.

The word “sham” appears eight times in the commission’s 40-page report, which features the redaction of many names.

But the meat is there for all to see. Manchester City artificially inflated its revenue by £830-million (R18-billion) in “sham” commercial deals over a nine-year period.

Of the £950-million (R20.6-billion) City recorded from Abu Dhabi sponsors from 2009-10 to 2017-18, the sponsors themselves paid only £119-million (R2.58-billion).

The rest, roughly R18-billion, came from ADUG, disguised as sponsorship.

“The core decision establishes the facts of what happened at Manchester City during this period,” Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters said in a statement.

“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.”

Manchester City has defended itself, vowing to appeal.

“Manchester City FC is both disappointed and surprised by the opinion of the Premier League Commission, that has been published today [29 September],” a statement on Manchester City’s website said.

“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.”

Sanctions

The biggest issue now is what sanctions can and will be imposed on Manchester City? This is an unprecedented scale of rules breaches, which the commission’s findings have exposed.

What is also unclear is whether any sanctions will be imposed before the appeals process has concluded.

There have been many theories and opinions on what sanctions might look like – from automatic expulsion from the league (which can only be recommended by the commission), to being stripped of titles won during the reviewed period.

And should Manchester City be stripped of the three Premier League titles it won in this period (2012, 2014, 2018), is the team that finished second, retroactively declared to be the champion?

That has the potential to open an entirely new can of worms because teams that finished fifth or sixth and missed out on Champions League or Europa League competition by one place, might seek monetary compensation. Whom would they sue for that recompense? The Premier League? Manchester City? European governing body Uefa?

The independent commission has what the Premier League calls “a broad discretion”, with no set scale of penalties. The options run from unlimited fines and points deductions to other sporting sanctions, and even a recommendation that the club be expelled from the league.

The only real guide is the two clubs already punished under the league’s financial rules.

In November 2023 Everton were docked 10 points for a £124.5-million loss, £19.5-million over the £105-million limit.

On appeal that fell to six log points, partly because the commission had failed to use sentencing benchmarks and partly because Everton’s misstatement was ruled “an innocent mistake”.

Nottingham Forest lost four points in March 2024 for exceeding their threshold by £34.5-million, and their appeal failed.

City’s case is on another scale. The commission found more than £900-million of revenue inflated and costs reduced over nine seasons, deliberate intent to get round the rules, false evidence from club witnesses and “concerted efforts” to obstruct the investigation.

In both the Everton and Forest cases the penalties were imposed almost immediately.

Everton played with minus 10 log points until their appeal was decided three months later, and Forest carried their four-point deduction through a failed appeal.

But in those cases the verdict and the sanction came together.

City’s case has been split in two – an appeal against the findings, which City say they will lodge by 2 October, and a separate private hearing to set the punishment.

The league has not said whether that hearing will wait for the appeal, or whether any sanction it imposes would apply while the appeal runs. DM