Manchester City has been found guilty of serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules over a nine-season period, with an independent commission finding that the club used “sham” commercial agreements to artificially inflate its revenues and reduce its costs by more than £900m.
The Premier League announced the findings on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, after publishing a redacted version of the Commission’s Core Decision.
The independent Commission found Manchester City guilty of all charges relating to the serious financial breaches and the majority of charges concerning the club’s failure to cooperate with the Premier League’s investigation.
The findings covered the 2009/10 to 2017/18 seasons.
According to the Premier League, the Commission found that 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 Commission also found that the club “filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators.”
It further found that City “was significantly in breach of both the Premier League’s and UEFA’s spending limits.”
The Premier League said the Commission found that City’s arrangements with some sponsors formed part of a disguised funding scheme in which the companies paid only part of the relevant sponsorship fees, while the remainder was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd, which owned the club.
The statement said, “The purpose of these schemes was found to have been to artificially inflate the club’s revenues, and reduce its costs, by more than £900 million during the affected period, to appear to comply with financial rules.”
The Commission concluded that “by its conduct the club clearly intended to circumvent the PL Rules.”
As a result, the Premier League said City failed to accurately report its income and expenditure for the purposes of its Profitability and Sustainability Rules and UEFA’s Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Rules.
The Commission found that had the relevant agreements been accurately reported in the club’s accounts, City would have breached both the Premier League’s and UEFA’s spending limits “by a very substantial amount.”
The Commission also found the club guilty of breaches relating to its conduct during the Premier League’s four-year investigation.
According to the League, City committed multiple breaches of its duties of co-operation and utmost good faith, with three of the four alleged breaches upheld.
