The chair of the Independent Football Regulator (IFR) has hinted that Manchester City’s owners could be removed from the English game after the club were found guilty of all the substantive charges brought against them by the Premier League for financial wrongdoing.
The official verdict was released on Tuesday afternoon, which showed City had cooked the books to the tune of nearly £900million through money artificially pumped into the club by their Abu Dhabi owners over a nine-year period.
The IFR was founded last year and could now play a part in potential sanctions that are to come from the verdict.
The Football Governance Act 2025 gives the regulator permission to remove club owners and suspend or revoke licences if they deem the wrongdoing by said club to be sufficiently serious.
Chair David Kogan has said: ‘The independent commission’s decision raises serious issues.
‘The IFR has powers to assess the suitability of owners, directors and executives and we will use these powers where appropriate, in the interests of protecting the sustainability, honesty and integrity of English football where there is clear evidence of wrongdoing by individuals.
IFR have hinted that Man City owner Sheikh Mansour could be kicked out of English football
The Premier League confirmed that Manchester City have been found guilty of ‘all charges related to serious breaches’ of the league’s financial regulations
‘This includes taking account of findings made by the Leagues. However, as the proceedings remain ongoing between Manchester City and the Premier League, we will await further developments.
‘We hope it can be resolved quickly for the sake of fans. For now, we have no further comment.’
On Friday, Daily Mail Sport reported how City had been found guilty of 114 of 115 charges against them.
However, there had been no official comment from the Premier League on the findings of an independent panel that oversaw a hearing that concluded in December 2024.
That has now dramatically changed. In a lengthy statement, the Premier League say 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’.
It also says the club falsely altered the financial picture at the Etihad to the tune of £900m. The club had agreed exorbitant sponsorship deals with a number of companies, but those sponsors only paid part of the fee.
The rest was propped up by the Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), which owned the club.
As the Premier League noted, this allowed City to ‘artificially inflate the club’s revenues’ and therefore spend more under Premier League rules. The higher the revenue a club records, the more they are permitted to spend.
Premier League CEO Richard Masters claimed that the commission’s verdict had ‘vindicated’ the league’s decision to pursue the charges
Moreover, further ‘sham’ deals, funded by ADUG, allowed the club to ‘record lower operating expenses than it actually incurred’.
The Premier League say that revenues were inflated and costs reduced to the tune of £900m in an attempt to comply with spending rules. The result was that the club ‘filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators’.
It added that the club was ‘significantly in breach of both the Premier League’s and UEFA’s spending limits’ during the time period in question, 2009-2018, when it won eight major trophies.
Had City reported accurately, ‘it would have been in breach of both the League’s and UEFA’s spending limits by a very substantial amount’.
The panel also found that City committed multiple breaches of its duties of co-operation and good faith in that it failed to assist the Premier League’s four-year investigation, triggered by the emergence of club emails obtained by a hacker.
Indeed, City had ‘made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the PL investigation’.
Richard Masters, Chief Executive of the Premier League, 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.
‘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.’
In a statement released a short time later, City said it was ‘disappointed and surprised’ and referred to the ‘opinion of the Premier League Commission’.
It added: ‘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 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.’
City have until Friday to appeal.
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