Manchester City Guilty: Inside the £830m Funding Scheme That Has Shaken English Football

Manchester City guilty. Those three words have hung over English football for more than three years. On Tuesday 29 September, the Premier League published the independent commission’s findings in full. After a hearing that concluded in December 2024, the panel ruled that the club had committed serious breaches of Premier League financial rules, finding it guilty on 114 of the 115 charges it faced. Every financial charge was upheld, and only one of the 35 cooperation charges was not.

The ruling covers nine seasons, from 2009-10 to 2017-18. It lands on one of the most decorated clubs of the modern era, and it raises a question that no pundit, rival or fan can currently answer: what happens to a club that wins everything, then is found to have bent the rules to do so?

What the commission actually found

The phrase at the heart of the verdict is the “Disguised Funding Scheme”. According to the commission, City signed sponsorship deals with companies based in Abu Dhabi that looked enormous on paper. In reality, the sponsors paid only a base sum. The rest, known as the “tagged sum”, was covered by Abu Dhabi United Group, the company linked to the club’s owner.

The numbers are startling. Across those nine seasons, City reported £949.94 million in income from Abu Dhabi sponsors. The sponsors themselves paid just £119.25 million. The remaining £830.69 million came from the owner’s own group, dressed up as commercial revenue. The commission described the contracts as “sham” arrangements.

The tagged sums also grew with the club’s ambitions. They rose from £22.5 million in 2009-10 to £134.73 million in 2017-18. One example from the ruling: in 2009-10, the scheme stopped City from breaking Chelsea’s then-record single-season loss of £140 million.

Five kinds of breach, one damaging pattern

The 115 charges were spread across several categories. In total, 54 concerned inaccurate financial information, while 14 related to false details about payments to players and managers. A further 5 covered UEFA financial fair play breaches, and 7 concerned the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules. The largest remaining group, 35 charges, dealt with a failure to cooperate with the league’s investigation.

The commission also looked closely at other arrangements. More than £15 million was paid to three former employees through consultancy agreements that sat outside their employment contracts. Reports link the arrangements to Roberto Mancini and Yaya Touré. Mancini said the second contract “isn’t my problem but theirs, probably”, CBS Sports reported. Separately, an image-rights arrangement known as “Project Longbow” overstated income by £24.5 million and understated expenses by £49.4 million.

The cooperation problem

For many observers, the most damaging passage is not about money at all. The commission found that City made concerted efforts to obstruct the investigation. It also concluded that several key witnesses gave false evidence, knowing it to be untrue.

That matters because sanctions are not fixed. Panels look at how deliberate the behaviour was, and a finding of dishonesty tends to push penalties upward.

Manchester City’s response

City is not backing down. The club said it was “disappointed and surprised”, that “irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its positions”, and that the decision contains “clear material errors, of law, principle and fact”, Al Jazeera reported. In a leaked video to staff, chief executive Ferran Soriano described the case as a conspiracy, Goal reported.

The club has until Friday 2 October to lodge its appeal. A fresh three-person independent commission will hear it. Pep Guardiola, who joined the club in 2016, publicly backed it. “I want every single @ManCity fan to know I am here; more than ever,” he wrote.

Pundits react with anger and heartbreak

The reaction from football television was raw. Former City defender Micah Richards said he was absolutely devastated. He came through the club’s academy and called the ruling heartbreaking for long-time supporters.

Jamie Carragher took a harder line. He questioned how the ownership can continue in English football and challenged the club’s claim of irrefutable evidence, saying that if such proof existed, it would already have been produced. Alan Shearer called the situation a complete and utter mess and wondered how moments such as Sergio Agüero’s title-winning goal should now be remembered. Ian Wright called it “cheating on an industrial scale” and demanded unprecedented punishment, while Roy Keane said the players should feel betrayed.

Compensation: the rivals are waiting

The verdict is only the first chapter. Four clubs, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, lodged claims in November 2024 to preserve their right to seek compensation. They could argue that they lost titles, Champions League places and commercial income because City held an unfair advantage.

There is a precedent. Burnley won £35.1 million from Everton after that club breached financial rules. Any successful claim could be worth more than £200 million to some of the clubs, Yahoo Sports reported, although no compensation case has been filed. This saga may run for years.

What happens next?

A separate hearing will decide the punishment, and the Premier League has no fixed tariff for financial breaches by design. Options include fines, points deductions and, at the extreme end, expulsion from the league. City cannot take the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, although it could challenge the fairness of the process in the High Court.

Recent precedents give a sense of scale. Everton and Nottingham Forest lost points for breaches of profit rules, and Derby County lost 21 points in 2021-22. Whether City’s case belongs in a different category altogether is now for the sanctions panel to decide.

The bigger picture

For a generation of supporters, the past decade at the Etihad was a golden age. For rivals, it was a decade spent chasing a club that seemed to have no ceiling. Both views now face a painful test. Whatever the sanction and however the appeal ends, the Premier League has said in plain terms that the rules were broken, and a commission has agreed.

GistMatrix will keep following every development, from the appeal to the sanctions hearing. Keep checking back for the latest.