Official: The Premier finds Manchester City guilty "of all charges"

The independent panel appointed by the Premier League to investigate Manchester City's financial dealings has found the club guilty of all charges (115) related to serious breaches of the Premier League's financial rules over a period of nine seasons , and of most of the charges related to its failure to cooperate with the League's investigation.

The independent commission, made up of several legal, financial and other experts , has declared in an exhaustive and extremely harsh statement the list of outrages committed by the club:

- Manchester City arranged fictitious contracts (which misrepresented the true agreement between the parties) with several of its commercial partners, in addition to resorting to fictitious agreements with others , to artificially inflate the club's revenues and reduce its costs.

- The club presented false accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators

- Manchester City significantly breached the spending limits of both the Premier League and UEFA.

- During the Premier League investigation, Manchester City committed multiple breaches of its duties of cooperation and utmost good faith toward the League (three of the four alleged breaches were confirmed).

The independent Commission determined that Manchester City entered into fictitious commercial agreements with several of its sponsors during that period, as part of a covert financing scheme under which those companies were only required to pay part of the corresponding sponsorship fees.

The remainder was financed by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), the club’s owner. As part of this scheme, other fictitious agreements were formalized, financed by ADUG, so that the club could record lower operating expenses than the actual ones, as well as a fictitious circular agreement with Fordham, an entity that acquired the image rights of the club’s players, also financed by ADUG.

'It was determined that the purpose of these plans was to a rtificially inflate the club's revenue and reduce its costs by more than 900 million pounds sterling during the affected period, in order to appear to comply with financial regulations. As a result, according to the Commission's findings, the club submitted false accounts and concealed the true financial situation from its auditors and football regulators. The Commission concluded that, "through its conduct, the club clearly intended to evade Premier League rules". '

As a result, City did not accurately declare its income and expenses for the purposes of the Premier League's Profitability and Sustainability Regulations and UEFA's Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations. The Commission determined that, had all the relevant agreements been accurately declared in the club's accounts, it would have breached both the League's and UEFA's spending limits by a very considerable amount.

Furthermore, during the four years that the Premier League's investigation lasted , the club repeatedly failed to comply with its duties of cooperation and good faith towards the League. The Commission concluded that the club had made concerted efforts to stop and obstruct the Premier League's investigation.

Now that the charges have been proven, the issue of the sanction will be addressed separately at a later hearing before the independent Commission . In accordance with Premier League rules, that hearing will remain private and confidential until publication of the outcome is permitted.

The club has the right to appeal the findings of the independent Commission and has until Friday, October 2 to exercise that right.

The intention of the Premier League Board is for the entire process (including appeals and the publication of the relevant decisions) to conclude as soon as possible.