The Premier League has published a redacted report saying Manchester City were found guilty of all the financial rule breaches they were accused of between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons, turning a long-running case into a clear and serious finding against the club.
The report follows Tuesday's release of the commission's findings and comes after news last week that City had been found guilty of breaking the majority of the 115 rules they were accused of breaching. The club continue to deny any wrongdoing, but the Premier League's position is now on the record in a way that leaves little room for ambiguity.
What the report said
According to the Premier League, Manchester City arranged "sham contracts" with a number of commercial partners as part of a scheme to disguise secret funding of more than £830m. The report said the club relied on sham agreements to artificially inflate revenues and reduce costs, with the commission also finding that a number of important club witnesses gave false evidence in key respects and that some knowingly gave untrue and dishonest evidence.
The Premier League also said the relevant sponsorship agreements were found to be shams, or at minimum did not reflect their economic substance. In its wording, the commission referred to deliberate or reckless conduct intended to circumvent Premier League rules.
Nearly a decade under scrutiny
The case covers nearly a decade of Manchester City conduct after Abu Dhabi United Group took over the club in 2008. The charges relate to the 2009-10 to 2017-18 seasons and include more than 100 alleged individual breaches across four broad charge categories.
The scale of the evidence underlines why the case has taken so long to reach this stage. The commission's report ran to more than 750 pages, while the core bundle of documents stretched to many tens of thousands of pages.
One detail highlighted in the wider case has also been central to the argument around City’s finances: in the 2011-12, 2013-14 and 2017-18 seasons, when they won the Premier League, the club recorded £360m in sponsor fees.
Richard Masters sets out the significance
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said the ruling is important because it fixes the factual basis of what happened. He said: "The core decision establishes the facts of what happened at Manchester City during this period."
Masters added that the report "details how the club systematically broke Premier League Rules for nearly a decade." That is a strong statement from the league and it helps explain why the case will continue to dominate discussion even after the initial findings have now been published.
What happens next?
Manchester City now have until 2 October to submit an appeal. Until that process is complete, the case remains live, but the publication of the redacted report means the Premier League has already set out its version of events in unusually direct terms.
For Manchester City Football, the issue is no longer just the length of the investigation. It is the seriousness of the findings, the scale of the alleged disguising of funding, and what the appeal will do, or fail to do, to change the picture the commission has drawn.
