The Premier League has confirmed Manchester City have been found guilty on all of the charges of financial misconduct levelled against them, though the club maintains its innocence.
City had been accused of 115 charges relating to the failure to comply with financial rules between the 2009/20 and 2017/18 campaigns, and a four-year investigation has finally reached a conclusion.
In a lengthy statement, the Premier League says City arranged ‘sham contracts (which misrepresented the true agreement between the parties) with a number of its commercial partners, as well as relying on ‘sham’ agreements with others, to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs’.
It also says the club falsely altered the financial picture at the Etihad to the tune of £900m.
The Premier League says the panel found that City had ‘filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators’.
It added that the club was ‘significantly in breach of both the Premier League’s and UEFA’s spending limits’ during the time period in question, 2009-2018, when it won eight major trophies.
The panel also found further ‘sham’ arrangements, funded by ADUG, which allowed City to record lower operating expenses that it incurred, along with a ‘sham’ circular arrangement with Fordham, an entity that purchased the club’s players’ image rights, that was funded by ADUG’.
The Premier League says that revenues were inflated and costs reduced to the tune of £900m in an attempt to comply with spending rules. The result was that the club ‘filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators’.
The panel also found that City committed multiple breaches of its duties of co-operation and good faith in that it failed to assist the Premier League’s four-year investigation, triggered by the emergence of club emails obtained by a hacker. Indeed, City had ‘made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the PL investigation’.
Richard Masters, Chief Executive of the Premier League, said: ‘The core decision establishes the facts of what happened at Manchester City during this period. 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.
‘It is a key responsibility of the Premier League to ensure that the Rules, approved by the clubs themselves, are upheld to protect the integrity of the competition. It is paramount that the League remains competitive and fair for all clubs and for the fans. We take that role extremely seriously.
‘This disciplinary case, and this decision, are the most significant in Premier League history. There are elements of the case that remain to be decided, including, importantly, what sanction must follow for these breaches. Now that we have the Commission’s decision, we are committed to moving swiftly through the remainder of the process, to provide certainty for the League, our clubs and fans.’
In response to the publication of the Core Decision on Tuesday, Man City released a statement claiming to have been ‘surprised and disappointed’ by the Commission’s opinion.
‘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 statement read. ‘The Club will therefore be relentless, and where necessary proactive, in any and all appropriate regulatory and legal forums.
‘The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements uncompleted. Manchester City FC will now pursue the appeal avenues open to it, on the basis that the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe.
‘The Club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis that the Premier League Board and Executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator, free from partisan influence.
‘The Club is obviously restricted in what it can say further until all future proceedings are complete.’