Manchester City held early stage settlement talks with the Premier League in an attempt to reduce the punishment hanging over the club, only for those talks to collapse quickly, according to a Bloomberg report published on Friday. The revelation, credited to people with knowledge of the discussions, adds a new layer to a case that has already shaped much of this season’s build up.
The proposed settlement reportedly centred on City making a significant financial payment rather than facing relegation or having Premier League titles stripped. It is a telling detail. Rather than contest every charge to the end, the club appears to have at least explored a route that would have drawn a line under the affair in exchange for money changing hands. According to the report, the approach fell apart because City continued to insist on its innocence throughout, which left little room for the kind of compromise a settlement requires.
Crucially, these talks took place before the Premier League’s independent commission made its ruling public in late September. That timing matters. It suggests City were, at the very least, alive to the possibility of a guilty verdict well before one arrived, even as the club publicly maintained it had done nothing wrong.
What City Were Found Guilty Of
The commission ruled against City on all but one of the 115 charges brought by the Premier League, covering seasons stretching from 2009/10 to 2017/18. Bloomberg’s report puts the scale of the financial overstatement at more than £900 million, with the panel concluding that City used what it termed sham commercial deals, underwritten by Abu Dhabi, to make the books look healthier than they were and to work around the league’s financial fair play rules.
The possible sanctions remain severe and wide ranging: a substantial fine, a transfer ban, a points deduction, or, at the extreme end, expulsion from the league and the stripping of titles won during the period in question. City have lodged an appeal and maintain they have done nothing wrong. A new three person appeal board has been appointed, and under Premier League rules its verdict is expected to be published by early February. There is a hope, though no guarantee, that the matter will be resolved before the end of the current season.
Why Any Deal Would Have Been Explosive
It is not hard to see why a settlement along these lines would have caused uproar had it gone through. A large cheque in place of relegation or title stripping would have let City draw a line under the case while keeping their history, and their place in the top flight, intact. Rival clubs would almost certainly have seen that as an unacceptable outcome. Arsenal and Liverpool, both of whom missed out on Premier League titles during City’s period of financial doping, as the Premier League’s own case effectively alleges, have reportedly wanted both retrospective and forward looking sanctions rather than a deal that simply made the problem smaller.
For the Premier League itself, the case has become something of a stain, dragging on for years and drawing scrutiny of the league’s own governance along the way. A settlement would have offered a way to close the book. Instead, with talks having broken down, the league is left carrying the full case through to its conclusion, with everything that implies for its credibility either way the appeal goes.
City’s Public Line Does Not Match the Backroom Picture
What makes the timing of this revelation particularly striking is how it sits alongside City’s public position. Enzo Maresca, the club’s manager, said this week that the owners were “convinced” they would win the appeal. “I know the organisation from years ago,” Maresca said. “I know how serious they are. I know they do the right things.” He added that the right moment to discuss the case properly would be once City have won their appeal.
Asked directly whether the settlement talks had come up in conversation with him, Maresca said they had not been discussed. That is a small but revealing detail. It suggests the approach to the Premier League was a boardroom level manoeuvre, kept away even from the manager tasked with speaking publicly about the case week to week. Manchester City’s only other comment has been a short statement repeating that the club is innocent of the accusations made against it.
Both the Premier League and City declined to comment further when approached about the Bloomberg report, leaving plenty of questions unanswered about exactly how advanced the discussions were and who initiated them.
Where This Leaves Things
With no settlement in place, the entire case remains live, and every sanction up to and including expulsion is still, in theory, on the table. The appeal board’s verdict, due by early February, now carries even more weight than before. It will decide not just City’s fate but something close to the credibility of the Premier League’s own enforcement of its financial rules, in a case that has already run for years and shows no sign of a quiet resolution.
For a club used to winning arguments as emphatically as it wins matches, the revelation that a quieter way out was tried and failed says plenty about how seriously the threat of relegation and lost titles is being taken behind the scenes at the Etihad, whatever the public reassurances suggest.
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