Manchester City have been found guilty on 114 of the 115 charges brought against them by the Premier League, according to reporting from David Ornstein of The Athletic on Friday, in a verdict that could carry consequences stretching back through an entire era of the club’s history. The Premier League and Manchester City have both declined to confirm details publicly, citing the confidentiality of the process, but the scale of the finding, reported and repeated across multiple outlets, represents one of the most significant moments English football’s authorities have faced in the Premier League era.
The charges were first brought in February 2023, following a four year investigation into the club’s financial conduct between 2009 and 2018, the period immediately following the Abu Dhabi United Group’s takeover. An independent commission hearing began in September 2024 and ran for months before the panel reached its conclusions, a process City themselves have described as having taken eight years from start to finish once the original investigation is included.
What the charges actually covered
The 115 charges were split across several categories, and it is worth setting them out plainly because the scale can otherwise get lost in the headline number. Fifty four charges related to City allegedly failing to provide accurate financial information to the Premier League. Thirty five concerned an alleged failure to cooperate fully with the investigation between 2018 and 2023. Fourteen more involved allegedly inaccurate details of payments to players and a former manager, covering the 2009 to 2010 and 2017 to 2018 seasons. Seven charges related to breaches of profitability and sustainability rules in 2015 to 2016 and 2017 to 2018, and a further five concerned breaches equivalent to UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations in 2013 to 2014 and 2017 to 2018.
Taken together, the allegations painted a picture of a club accused of disguising owner investment as sponsorship income and understating the true cost of contracts, including for a former manager, at a time when City were transforming from a mid table Manchester club into the dominant force in English football. It has never been in dispute that City won an extraordinary amount during this period. What the commission was asked to decide was whether that success had been built, in part, on financial rules the rest of the league was required to follow.
City’s response, issued through the club, was consistent with the position they have held since the charges were first announced. Their statement reaffirmed that “the Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements to be completed” and stressed that the club has “diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis the Premier League board and executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair minded regulator.” The club maintains its defence is backed by what it calls irrefutable evidence and has given no indication it accepts the commission’s findings.
An appeal, then a separate battle over sanctions
Crucially, Friday’s news is not the end of the process. Both Manchester City and the Premier League now have fourteen days from the judgement to lodge an appeal, and given the scale of what has been found, an appeal from City looks close to inevitable. A fresh three person Appeal Board, appointed under arrangements overseen by Sir Gary Hickinbottom and required to include a chair with judicial experience, will hear any challenge. Unusually for a case of this size, there is no route beyond that board. City cannot take this to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, since the Premier League’s own appeal process is designed to be final.
Sanctions, too, remain undecided. The Premier League deliberately avoided setting out a fixed scale of punishments when the independent commission process was created, which means a separate hearing will now be needed to determine what City actually face. The available range is broad, running from fines at one end to points deductions or, at the most extreme, expulsion from the league at the other. Everton and Nottingham Forest were both docked points in the 2023 to 2024 season for breaches of the profitability and sustainability rules, though those cases involved a single charge rather than 114. Some reporting has floated the possibility that City could ultimately be stripped of titles won during the period in question, though that is speculation about where a future sanctions panel might land rather than anything that has actually been decided.
A strange moment for a club flying high again
What makes the timing so pointed is where City find themselves this season. Under Enzo Maresca, who took over following Pep Guardiola’s departure at the end of last season, City sit top of the Premier League table after seven matches, having moved three points clear following Arsenal’s defeat to Brighton. Maresca himself has been careful not to get carried away with the position, saying recently that “it’s better to have three points more than less, no doubt, but at the same time we know that it’s quite early.” He posted a cryptic message on social media, built around images of quiet reflection and a quote from Socrates, in the hour before the verdict became public, though he has made no direct on the record comment about the case itself.
Others connected to the club have been quicker to speak. Rodri, City’s Spain international midfielder, has repeatedly voiced his faith that the club will ultimately be vindicated, pointing to the 2020 case in which City had a two year Champions League ban overturned on appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Whether history repeats itself this time is now a question for lawyers rather than footballers. For a club that has spent the best part of a decade insisting the accusations against it did not add up, Friday’s verdict is the heaviest blow the case has landed so far, and the fight over what happens next is only just beginning.
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