The intricate web Man City spun to con the Premier League — SkimNews
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- Manchester City were found guilty of all charges related to serious financial breaches and all but one charge of failing to co-operate, with the word "sham" appearing eight times in the 40-page independent commission ruling published this week.
- Abu Dhabi United Group funnelled money into the club through a 'disguised funding scheme' from 2009-10 to 2017-18, with sponsorship deals split into a small base fee paid by sponsors and a much larger 'tagged sum' paid by the owners — of £949.94m in commercial income, only £119.25m was genuine base fees.
- Project Longbow, launched by City in 2012, included a sub-strand called the Fordham Arrangement described by the panel as 'little more than a front', which wrongfully recorded £24.5m as operating income and excluded £49.414m from operating expenses.
- Manchester City moved expensive player and manager contracts off the books by paying remuneration through third parties (in reality the owners) recorded as consultancy agreements, in three cases worth £8.866m, £7.4m and £0.5m.
- The commission found that evidence from 24 individuals who served witness statements or documentary evidence was 'false in a number of key respects', with certain witnesses providing evidence 'they knew to be untrue and so had been dishonest'.
- Manchester City denied the claims, arguing the Premier League had misunderstood the sponsorship agreements, but the panel rejected that explanation as 'concocted well after the event in an attempt to obscure and conceal the realities of the disguised funding scheme'.
- The ruling documented total misstatements of £920.68m, including over £830m in overstated sponsorship income and £90m in disguised expenses across the Fordham Arrangement and third-party consultancy arrangements.
Why it matters: The ruling establishes that £830m in owner funds were concealed as sponsorship revenue across nine seasons and flags 24 individuals whose evidence the panel found dishonest. The source notes the new Independent Football Regulator can examine the honesty and integrity of directors and owners, meaning the guilty verdict opens a path to personal accountability beyond any club-level sanction — with names still redacted in the public document.
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