Manchester City guilty verdict on 115 Premier League charges set to trigger years-long appeal and profound fallout

City verdict reported as tribunal finds club breached rules over nine-year period

Reports last week said an independent tribunal has reached decisions in Manchester City’s long-running case with the Premier League and Sky Sports News understands the process is now moving to the appeal stage. The charges relate to alleged breaches of Financial Fair Play rules between 2009-10 and 2017-18, with 35 of the 115 charges concerning a failure to cooperate with Premier League investigations between 2018 and 2023.

City have been embroiled in legal disputes with UEFA and the Premier League for 12 years. In 2014 the club paid a £49m fine for breaking UEFA’s financial fair play rules and in 2020 they were given a two-year European competition ban and fined €30m for further breaches. The ban was overturned at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, where City were cleared of disguising owner funding as sponsorship income.

Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said in an open letter to fans on Saturday: "The Premier League process still has a long way to run, and our confidence and intent in proving the club's innocence is just as strong as when this began".

Appeal route could keep case alive for years

Sky Sports News understands City will appeal via a new three-person panel. If the appeal goes against them they will not be able to go to CAS, but there is a strong possibility City's owners would turn to the High Court to clear their name.

"In 2014, City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said he would spend £30m on the best 50 lawyers in the world and sue UEFA for the next 10 years rather than lose the FFP case," Sky Sports notes. City have always insisted they have irrefutable evidence to prove they did not break the rules.

The case will continue to cast a shadow over Enzo Maresca and his players until it is finally resolved. City's reputation, and that of their owners, depends on this and the final judgement will also have implications for relations between Abu Dhabi and the United Kingdom.

City say the dispute would never have existed if it had not been for documents obtained illegally by convicted Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto, describing the leaked internal documents as "out-of-context materials purportedly hacked or stolen" which have been used in an "organised and clear attempt to damage the club's reputation".

Consequences beyond sporting sanctions

Jonathan Wilson argues the verdict, if upheld, would call into question the legitimacy of City’s recent dominance.

"So it turns out none of that was real. Nothing that happened in English football between 2009‑10 and 2017-18 that involved Manchester City actually happened. City beating Manchester United 6-1 at Old Trafford? Fake. Sergio Agüero’s 94th‑minute winner to clinch the title in 2012? A figment of the imagination," Wilson writes.

He notes that without those successes, City wouldn’t have been in the position they were for the past eight seasons. "The 14 successive wins that took them to the league title in 2018-19 would not have happened without what went before. Neither would the Treble of 2023 or the record four league titles in a row."

Wilson suggests the authorities seem reluctant to reallocate titles even if stripped, warning: "Ersatz glory satisfies nobody." He adds: "If the guilty verdicts are upheld, the consequences will be profound."

Bloomberg reported last month that the government had been warned of potential negative consequences for UK-United Arab Emirates relations should the verdict go against City. Andy Burnham was mayor during a period when the UAE made significant investments in Manchester and spoke to the UAE president, Sheikh Mohammed, within a week of becoming prime minister in July.

Potential financial claims loom large. Everton’s one breach in 2022, overspending the profitability and sustainability threshold by £19.5m, earned them a six-point deduction and they had to pay Burnley, who were relegated, £26m in damages plus £9m in interest. Wilson argues City’s offences are "almost incalculably worse" and they failed to cooperate with the investigation.

"It is not just that they could be forcibly relegated; it is that potential for financial claims against City and not just from those sides who missed out on titles during the ghost years," he writes. "Other sides were denied European places. Prize money was lost. Even relegated sides may argue that City were a factor in them dropping out of the Premier League."

He cites Leicester as an example, who "narrowly missed out on Champions League qualification in 2020 and 2021. Would they have qualified had City, who finished above them, not been artificially juiced?"

"The biggest cost, perhaps, is the one that is hardest to calculate: emotional energy. The Agüero goal was arguably the most famous moment in Premier League history. What does it mean to say it didn’t happen?" Wilson asks, comparing the situation to Marseille’s 1993 Champions League success that remains on record but is undermined by being stripped of the Ligue 1 title that season for match-fixing.

He concludes: "For everybody else? There’s a sense of being cheated, and not just by City. This great human drama wasn’t real? What about now? Why should I care about this season when an independent panel might decide in 17 years that it wasn’t real, either?" Wilson adds that not acting would legitimise rule-breaking and say the game is "about who can afford the best lawyers".