The Premier League have now released an official statement regarding Manchester City and the charges of breaking financial rules.
This follows intense media reporting and claims that the club had been found guilty on all but one of the 115 charges in total that they faced.
Late Tuesday afternoon seeing the Premier League reveal that Manchester City have been found guilty by the independent commission of breaking ALL all charges related to breaches of the Premier League financial rules between 2009/10 and 2017/18.
They also found that Manchester City were guilty of all charges, except one, that related to non-cooperation with the Premier League investigation.
So when David Ornstein at The Athletic had the exclusive, he was on the money.
The Premier League publishing a redacted version of the independent commission’s report, which said the charges “concerned well over 100 alleged individual breaches of Premier League Rules across four broad charge categories.”
They say that the sham commercial deals were part of a “disguised funding scheme” to the tune of £830.69m!
The Premier League announcing that the independent Commission found that between Seasons 2009/10 and 2017/18:
Manchester City arranged ‘sham’ contracts (which misrepresented the true agreement between the parties) with a number of its commercial partners, as well as relying on ‘sham’ agreements with others, to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs
The club filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators
Manchester City was significantly in breach of both the Premier League’s and Uefa’s spending limits
During the Premier League’s investigation, Manchester City committed multiple breaches of its duties of co-operation and utmost good faith towards the League (three of the four alleged breaches were upheld)
Richard Masters is CEO of the Premier League and he has said: “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.”
The Premier League have stated that Manchester City have the right to appeal the independent commission’s findings and have until Friday 2 October to do so.