This is an updated version of an article first published on May 20, 2024.
Another season, another quest for dominance. Yet in a Premier League sky made blue by Manchester City winning six of the last seven titles, there is still that dark cloud that will not move on.
Hanging over the brilliant success of Pep Guardiola’s side are the 115 charges issued by the Premier League in February 2023. The breadth of the alleged breaches of financial rules are like nothing seen before in English football and, if proven, promise to taint the empire built during the years of Sheikh Mansour’s ownership.
City strenuously deny the alleged financial charges that spanned nine seasons of growth but must wait to clear their name in front of an independent commission that began its long-awaited and potentially seismic hearing at the International Dispute Resolution Centre in central London today. The final judgement, though, is still a distant prospect.
On the back of City’s hugely significant case getting underway, The Athletic analyses how the protracted saga could end.
How we got here
This implausibly long process can be traced back over five years to March 2019, when Theresa May was the UK’s Prime Minister and Erling Haaland was still a green novice with Red Bull Salzburg.
That was the point the Premier League confirmed it was investigating Manchester City on the back of the Football Leaks revelations published by German newspaper Der Spiegel.
The full breakdown of those is best explained at length here but City were alleged to have funnelled money into the club via inflated sponsorship deals with UAE-based companies, as well as hiding some costs by keeping salaries and image-rights payments off the books.
UEFA did not need nearly as long in their own investigation when banning City from its competitions for two years and issuing a fine of €30m (£26m) in February 2020 for breaking Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules, but a challenge to that ruling with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) later saw the suspension lifted and the financial penalty reduced to €10m.
City said the decision was “validation of the club’s position and the body of evidence that it was able to present”.
All the while, City did their utmost to avoid a Premier League investigation. The club’s legal team challenged the jurisdiction of the Premier League’s arbitrators and also fought a request to disclose information. City did not want that made public but, in the summer of 2021, lost its case in the court of appeal.
All roads ultimately led to February 6, 2023 (588 days ago and counting) when the Premier League announced 115 charges against City were being referred to an independent commission. City responded by saying they had a “comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence” to prove they had done nothing wrong.
The past 18 months have seen Everton (twice) and Nottingham Forest charged and deducted points for breaching the Premier League’s PSR but still the wait goes on in City’s more wide-ranging case.
“I would imagine they would be making this as difficult as possible,” says one sports lawyer, who like everyone in this article is speaking on grounds of anonymity to protect working relations. “The timescale to me is not surprising.”
Richard Masters, the Premier League’s chief executive, confirmed in January a date had been set for a hearing and in April added that the protracted case would be resolved “in the near future”. That date has finally arrived.
Away from the Etihad Stadium, where Guardiola’s side reign as English football’s dominant side, the litigation rumbled quietly on throughout last season and the summer. Preparation for the hearing was exhaustive, with evidence and multiple witness statements being compiled and countered.
City are sparing no expense. Their defence is being led by David Pannick, the highly regarded — and highly paid — KC of Blackstone Chambers.
Lord Pannick KC in 2016 (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
A lack of transparency on the case may have irritated many football followers but, as with any disciplinary matter passed to a commission by the Premier League, English Football League (EFL) or Football Association (FA), it is part of a confidential process. A final outcome published by the Premier League — whenever that might be — will be the next we officially hear of it.
So how could it play out? Here we look at the possibilities…
Scenario A: Exoneration
Perhaps it is the sheer weight of charges that implies some level of guilt but this is a club that vehemently denies any wrongdoing in a defence unmoved since the spotlight was first shone on their conduct. The bullish belief is that all charges against them will be dismissed. “We look forward to this matter being put to rest once and for all,” they said in February 2023.
“I have never seen a bunch of people more confident that they have nothing to answer for than Manchester City,” one former Premier League chief executive tells The Athletic.
City can point to their CAS appeal victory in 2020 for “validation” of their position. That saw a two-year suspension from UEFA competitions overturned, allowing them to continue a pursuit of a maiden Champions League title that eventually came last season.
CAS ruled that most alleged financial breaches were “either not established or time-barred”, with UEFA’s rules stating that prosecution can only come for offences committed in the last five years. The Premier League does not have that time limit, though, with some of the charges currently facing City going back as far as the 2009-10 season. The strength of the evidence put forward by the Premier League, likely to revolve around the Football Leaks revelations, will be key.
“Their argument is that there are things they have done that would be wrong under the present rules,” adds the former chief executive. “But under the rules at the time and the way they submitted the information, they believe, was all above board.
“They may get sanctioned because they didn’t account for something properly, but they are confident that when it comes to the big things, which they feel would be wrong in today’s market but fine under a different set of rules as they were back then, they won’t get sanctioned.”
City would then, at last, be able to move on. Premier League rivals, however, might not be as willing to forget.
Scenario B: A settlement agreement
There had long been a theory that this case will not reach a hearing and that, after much back and forth, the Premier League and Manchester City would reach a settlement agreement to draw a line in the sand. It was thought a compromise would possibly come in the form of retrospective fines, sparing City the danger of much worse and also allowing them to avoid a formal admission of guilt.
A settlement could also have avoided wider political issues. The UK government has admitted to The Athletic that its embassy in Abu Dhabi and the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) in London have discussed the charges levelled at Manchester City by the Premier League, but are refusing to disclose the correspondence because it could risk the UK’s relationship with the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Yet as time wore on, it seemed increasingly unlikely that a settlement would be struck, and so it proved. Neither party blinked in the months that led us here, with City even opening up a new case in their legal battles against the Premier League over its associated party transaction (APT) rules this summer.
This is not a fight they were prepared to run away from and the sense within sports legal circles is that this will now be played out to the bitter end.
Scenario C: Points deductions and the nuclear option of relegation
So let us imagine next spring rolling around and that City have been unsuccessful in their defence of all 115 charges. A punishment will be unavoidable — and Guardiola, for one, believes their Premier League rivals are desperate for that to happen — but the great unknown is what it will look like.
Shaping everything would be which and how many of the charges City are found guilty of. And there are some big ones.
As well as the alleged PSR breaches between 2015-16 and 2017-18, there are the charges that relate to City failing to provide accurate financial information and details of payments to players and coaching staff.
Der Spiegel, using information from Football Leaks, alleged in 2018 that City had manipulated sponsorship deals to help comply with UEFA’s FFP rules, with additional money also paid to manager Roberto Mancini via another club owned by City’s owner Sheikh Mansour in Abu Dhabi. Mancini has always denied any wrongdoing.
City have always called the Football Leaks revelations a “clear and organised” attempt to damage their reputation but, if proven, the breaches would effectively have enabled the club to spend more than was permitted building a squad that would win its first Premier League title in 2011-12 and a base for more in the years that followed.
“If the Football Leaks documents are genuine, it’s hard to see that there could be any defence to some of those charges,” explains a sports lawyer.
“The Everton and Nottingham Forest cases offered some quite powerful guidance last season. The judgments gave credit to clubs for admitting the breaches but they can’t do it here. If the end outcome is that Man City are found guilty, they’ve not cooperated, they haven’t admitted it and they’ve put the Premier League through all this expense fighting it for years, there wouldn’t be mitigating factors, only aggravating factors.”
Any decision reached by a three-person commission would be subject to appeal but the almost limitless scope of its disciplinary powers leaves all outcomes on the table. The potential punishments are outlined in rule W.51 of the Premier League’s handbook and range from fines to points deductions — and even expulsion from the Premier League.
“You would have to think that the penalty would be absolutely huge,” said one sports lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their relationships. “Expulsion from the Premier League wouldn’t be just hyperbole. It would be a realistic outcome if they were found guilty of the charges.
“If, on the other hand, some of the charges like those involving Mancini aren’t as clear-cut as people think and we’re talking about multiple PSR breaches, you might be looking at a 30-point deduction.
“There are probably four outcomes; they’re acquitted, there’s a huge fine and small points deduction, there’s a huge points deduction or they’re kicked out of the league. But we just don’t know without seeing the in-depth evidence. And just because someone has been charged 115 times, it doesn’t mean they’re guilty.”
Others will ultimately have to be the judge of that.
(Top photo: Matt McNulty/Getty Images))
