Remember when the Premier League charged Manchester City with over 100 instances of financial maneuvering which ran afoul of league rules? It's possible you've forgotten all about that, since the league's investigation began all the way back in 2019, and the charges were announced in 2023. The long timeline here is owed to City's continued refusal to cooperate with the Premier League and the efforts of their expensive legal teams. But time moves forward nonetheless, and so at long last we hare here, with The Athletic's David Ornstein reporting that City has been found guilty of almost every charge it faced.
Since it has been three years since the charges were first announced, a refresher is in order. The case is based on the Premier League's belief that City consistently broke the league's financial rules between the period of 2009 to 2018. The start of this period coincides with City being purchased by Abu Dhabi United Group, which has since funneled billions of petrostate dollars into the club, transforming it from a perennial also-ran into one of the most powerful and successful teams in world soccer history. According to the Premier League, a significant portion of those billions of dollars were improperly spent, and broke league rules. City has been accused of doing things like inflating sponsorship revenue in order to stay compliant with Financial Fair Play rules, to paying former manager Roberto Mancini a second secret salary.
These are the sort of things that everyone always assumed the richest clubs were doing, and for a long time it seemed like the Premier League was happy to turn a blind eye. But the charges that were filed against City in 2023 coincided with the league suddenly becoming very focused on tightening and enforcing its financial rules—the threat of government regulation might have played a role in that—and in recent years obeying those rules has become a point of emphasis for clubs throughout the Premier League. Nottingham Forest and Everton were both hit with hefty points deductions for running afoul of the rules in ways that pale in comparison to what City is accused of doing, and the stagnation of clubs like Newcastle and Aston Villa can be partially blamed on their hesitance to spend too much money on players.
The guilty verdict that was handed down Friday came from an independent panel, but Ornstein reports that no specific sanctions have been decided yet. The Premier League's rules give the panel quite a bit of leeway when it comes to deciding punishments, and so City could be facing fines, a points deduction, retroactive points deductions, or even expulsion from the league. If the points deductions that Forest and Everton were handed over their comparatively minor infractions can be used as a guide post, then one would assume that City is about to be in some big trouble.
City haters shouldn't get their hopes up just yet, though. The club will have the chance to appeal whatever sanctions are handed down, and as the long delay in even getting to this point has already demonstrated, they have a lot more money to spend on lawyers. The Premier League itself also has some considerations to make here. City is one of the crown jewels of the league, and is more responsible than any other team for bringing world-class talent into the Premier League while raising its level of competition to be the best in the world. Is a team that is so obviously valuable to the Premier League's bottom line one that the league is going to be eager to hit with a death penalty? Expect to have an answer to that question at some point in the next few weeks or months—or years.
