Manchester City Reportedly Found Guilty of 114 Premier League Charges as Sanctions Await

Manchester City is preparing to challenge any punishment after an independent commission reportedly found the club guilty of 114 of the 115 alleged breaches of Premier League regulations. The commission has yet to announce sanctions, and the club’s chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, says City remains determined to clear its name.

Premier League rules give the disciplinary panel broad discretion. Possible penalties include unlimited financial fines, point deductions of varying severity, forfeiture of matches, revocation of previously won league titles or expulsion from the division. Any formal sanction is expected to prompt an immediate City appeal. A separate independent appeals board would hear it; league rules bar either party from taking the dispute to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland.

The reported decision upheld all but one of the charges filed in February 2023, following a four-year inquiry into the club’s financial reporting and compliance from 2009 to 2018. The long-awaited ruling brings a key development in a case that has shadowed City’s domestic and European dominance, but the sanctions hearing and any appeal remain ahead.

In an open letter to supporters, Al Mubarak said the adverse ruling had not weakened the club’s resolve and warned that the proceedings were still active.

“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,” he wrote. “There are so many things that I would like to be able to share with you to help you understand why we feel so confident in our position. But the strict confidentiality of the legal process and our determination to respect it means I cannot do that at the moment. Even this letter underwent several legal checks to make sure it complies.”

The 115 charges covered four areas. The Premier League alleged that City failed to provide a true and fair view of its financial position between the 2009–10 and 2017–18 seasons, particularly over sponsorship revenues and operating costs. It also alleged that the club did not fully disclose managerial and player compensation across multiple seasons, including arrangements involving former manager Roberto Mancini and several senior players.

Other allegations concerned breaches of UEFA’s financial fair play (FFP) regulations from 2013 to 2018 and non-compliance with the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) between 2015 and 2018. A fourth category accused City of repeatedly failing to act in good faith and assist the league’s investigation, including by withholding requested documents and information from December 2018 to early 2023.

The Premier League opened its investigation in late 2018 after European media outlets published documents from the “Football Leaks” cache. The same materials led UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body, in February 2020, to impose a two-year ban from European competition and a €30 million ($32.5 million) fine for alleged financial fair play breaches.

In July 2020, CAS overturned the European ban and reduced the fine to €10 million. It found that many alleged violations were either unproven or time-barred under UEFA’s five-year statute of limitations. The Premier League’s rules have no statute of limitations for disciplinary offenses, allowing the league to examine records dating back to 2009.

After the reported findings, City reiterated that the regulatory process remains ongoing. The club said it had participated over the past eight years with the expectation that the Premier League Board and Executive would act as an impartial and independent regulator. When the charges were issued in February 2023, City said it was surprised by the allegations and welcomed an independent review of what it called a “comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence.”

Al Mubarak has been chairman since the Abu Dhabi United Group, led by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, acquired City in 2008. The club has since won eight Premier League championships, three FA Cups, six League Cups and the 2023 UEFA Champions League title.

Al Mubarak urged supporters to focus on the team’s schedule after the international break: a Premier League trip to Anfield to face Liverpool and a UEFA Champions League home match against Paris Saint-Germain.