Man City 115 charges: the verdict, the appeal and what comes next
An independent Commission found Manchester City guilty of all but one of the Premier League’s charges in September 2026. City have appealed and the sanction is still to be decided.
Jun 6, 2024 · Updated Oct 17, 2026
For more than three years, “the 115 charges” hung over Manchester City. The Premier League charged the club in February 2023 with breaking its financial rules over nine seasons, from 2009-10 to 2017-18, and with failing to cooperate with the investigation that followed.
On 29 September 2026 the Premier League published the outcome. An independent Commission found City guilty of every charge bar one. The sanction has not been decided yet, and City, who deny any wrongdoing, lodged an appeal on 1 October. Here is what the charges were, what the Commission found and what happens next.
What were the 115 charges?
The Premier League’s statement of 6 February 2023 listed five groups of rules City were alleged to have broken. The League never gave a total itself. “115” is the widely reported count of individual rule breaches across those groups, and the Commission’s decision describes the case as “well over 100 individual breaches”.
| What the rules required | Period | Reported count | Commission’s finding |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accurate financial information giving a true and fair view, including sponsorship revenue, related parties and operating costs | 2009-10 to 2017-18 | 54 | Proven |
| Full details of manager pay (2009-10 to 2012-13) and player pay (2010-11 to 2015-16) in their contracts | 2009-10 to 2015-16 | 14 | Proven |
| Compliance with UEFA’s Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations | 2013-14 to 2017-18 | 5 | Proven |
| The Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules | 2015-16 to 2017-18 | 7 | Proven |
| Cooperating with the League’s investigation in utmost good faith | December 2018 to February 2023 | 35 | Mostly proven: three of the four sub-charges upheld |
The nine seasons under investigation include three of City’s league titles: 2011-12, 2013-14 and 2017-18.
The hearing
The case was heard in private by a three-member independent Commission, appointed by the chair of the Premier League’s Judicial Panel. The hearing ran for 42 days, from 16 September to 6 December 2024. City’s legal team was led by the barrister David Pannick.
The decision then took far longer than anyone expected. The Commission itself called the delay “regrettable”, and pointed to roughly 7,000 pages of hearing transcripts and the parties’ detailed written submissions.
The verdict: what the Commission found
The Premier League published a redacted version of the Commission’s “Core Decision” on 29 September 2026. Its main findings:
- Sham sponsorship deals. City’s Abu Dhabi sponsorship agreements were found to be shams: the sponsors paid only part of the fees, and the rest was funded by the club’s owner, Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG). The Commission ruled that this money should have been recorded as equity from the owner, not as sponsorship income.
- Overstated income. City’s income across those seasons was “hugely overstated by over £830 million”. Further sham arrangements, including a circular image-rights deal with a company called Fordham, kept costs off the books. The Premier League puts the total effect of the schemes at more than £900 million.
- Misstated accounts. The club filed accounts that did not give a true and fair view of its finances, and concealed the true position from its auditors and from football regulators.
- Spending limits broken. Restated correctly, City failed UEFA’s break-even requirement and the Premier League’s PSR limits “by a very substantial amount” in every season covered by those charges.
- Non-cooperation. The Commission found that City “made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the PL investigation”. The one charge it did not uphold, Charge 4(B), was part of this group.
The Commission also rejected City’s criticisms of how the Premier League had run its investigation and prosecution. It found that some evidence from witnesses called by the club was false in key respects. Premier League chief executive Richard Masters called the case and the decision “the most significant in Premier League history”.
City’s response and the appeal
City continue to deny all wrongdoing. Co-chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said that “nothing has changed” and that the club remained confident of proving its innocence. City lodged their appeal on the evening of Thursday 1 October 2026, and the Premier League confirmed it the next day.
The appeal goes to an independent Appeal Board of three members, one of whom must have held judicial office. Like the original hearing, it is held in private. The Board can allow the appeal, dismiss it or vary the Commission’s decision.
What punishment can City face?
The sanction will be set at a separate, private hearing in front of the same Commission. Under Section W of the Premier League rules, the Commission has broad discretion; its options include fines, points deductions and other sporting sanctions. Reports have discussed penalties up to a deduction large enough to relegate City, or expulsion from the League, but no sanction has been set.
The Premier League has said it wants the whole process, including any appeals, finished as soon as possible. As of mid-October 2026, neither the appeal nor the sanction hearing had been decided.
How is this different from the UEFA case?
This is not the first time City’s finances have been tested. In February 2020, UEFA found the club guilty of overstating sponsorship revenue in breach of its Financial Fair Play rules. It banned City from its competitions for two years and fined them €30 million. In July 2020 the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned the ban and cut the fine to €10 million, finding that most of the alleged breaches were “either not established or time-barred”.
The Premier League case is broader. It runs from 2009-10, covers the League’s own rules as well as UEFA’s, and includes the cooperation charges.
It is also separate from City’s legal fight over the League’s Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules, which govern commercial deals with companies linked to a club’s owners. That dispute ended in a settlement on 8 September 2025, in which City accepted that the current APT rules are valid and binding.
Where City stand on the pitch
City won four Premier League titles in a row from 2020-21 to 2023-24, the first men’s team in English football to do so. Liverpool were champions in 2024-25, and Arsenal won the 2025-26 title, with City second, seven points behind.
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