Football club found guilty of ‘hiding’ secret funding by more than £830m in damning report by Premier League’s independent commission.
The Premier League last night issued an extraordinary statement saying that an independent commission has found Manchester City Football Club guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the league’s financial rules over a nine-year period (2009-10 to 2017-18), and guilty of the majority of charges related to failures to co-operate with the investigation.
According to the statement, the independent commission found that over the nine-year period, the club arranged ‘sham’ contracts with commercial partners that misrepresented the true arrangements between the parties involved.
It found that a number of sponsors paid only a portion of agreed sponsorship fees, with the rest paid by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG) – the company that owns the club. This and further ‘sham’ agreements with others, enabled ADUG to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce costs by more than £900m in the period in question.
What’s more, the commission found the club guilty of misstating accounts and concealing the true state of finances from its auditors and from football regulators.
In doing so, Manchester City FC was in serious breach of spending limits imposed by both the Premier League and UEFA, meaning the club had a significant unfair advantage over rival football clubs.
The commission also says that while it undertook the investigation, the club committed multiple breaches of its duties to cooperate and to act in ‘utmost good faith’.
- You can read a redacted version of the disciplinary committee decision
Manchester City Football Club now has a right to appeal the finding, which it must exercise by Friday, October 2. Depending on such an appeal, the issue of sanctions on the club will be addressed in a separate hearing – which, under Premier League rules, will remain confidential until ‘publication of the outcome is permitted.’ So we may have to wait some time to hear what action has been taken.
Richard Masters, Chief Executive of the Premier League, says: ‘The core decision establishes the facts of what happened at Manchester City during this period. It details how the club systematically broke Premier League Rules for nearly a decade. It also vindicates the Premier League’s decision to pursue this case against Manchester City. While the process to date has been both long and difficult, the League has remained determined that the facts be established independently.
‘It is a key responsibility of the Premier League to ensure that the Rules, approved by the clubs themselves, are upheld to protect the integrity of the competition. It is paramount that the League remains competitive and fair for all clubs and for the fans. We take that role extremely seriously. This disciplinary case, and this decision, are the most significant in Premier League history. There are elements of the case that remain to be decided, including, importantly, what sanction must follow for these breaches. Now we have the Commission’s decision, we are committed to moving swiftly through the remainder of the process, to provide certainty for the League, our clubs and fans.’
Last night Manchester City Football Club issues a statement in response to the findings. It said: ‘Manchester City FC is both disappointed and surprised by the opinion of the Premier League Commission, that has been published today. The club is innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League and a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its positions, relating to this case. The club will therefore be relentless, and where necessary proactive, in any and all appropriate regulatory and legal forums.
‘The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements uncompleted. Manchester City FC will now pursue the appeal avenues open to it, on the basis that the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe. The club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis that the Premier League Board and Executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator, free from partisan influence. The club is obviously restricted in what it can say further until all future proceedings are complete.’
Photo by Mark McNeill / Unsplash.
[…] Manchester City’s ‘sham‘ contracts – what we know […]