Man City chairman confident club will prove innocence — SkimNews
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- Khaldoon Al Mubarak wrote an open letter to Manchester City fans saying the club's "confidence and intent in proving the club's innocence is just as strong as when this began," constrained from sharing more by the legal process's confidentiality rules.
- Manchester City were found guilty of the vast majority of 115 Premier League financial charges on Friday, with BBC Sport told the club will appeal; potential sanctions include a points deduction, expulsion from the Premier League, or a huge fine.
- Premier League clubs are seeking legal advice on compensation, with four having filed protective claims; former Liverpool MD Christian Purslow told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that all 19 rivals in each of the nine covered seasons suffered "easy-to-compute loss," citing £3m per Premier League place and tens of millions in Champions League qualification revenue.
- Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told BBC Radio 5 Live the case is "very unsettling for football fans" and urged the Premier League to resolve it swiftly, saying "we can't apply those rules" — the league "have got to do it themselves."
- Former City chairman David Bernstein (1998–2003) said he felt "absolutely awful" and that any punishment would have to be "more drastic than a fine," warning that "the appeal process cannot go on for year after year" or it would be "a disaster" for English football.
- City fan Noel Gallagher told the Let Me Talk podcast he was "shocked" by the verdict, saying the club had "vehemently denied any of these charges" and calling the news "quite sad" for players and supporters.
- The charges cover the tenures of Roberto Mancini, Manuel Pellegrini and the first two years under Pep Guardiola, during which City won eight trophies including three Premier League titles; the verdict came 1,327 days after the club was charged in February 2023.
Why it matters: The guilty verdict on 115 charges leaves Manchester City facing expulsion, a points deduction, or a massive fine — and four rival clubs have already filed protective compensation claims that, as Purslow noted, could aggregate losses across nine seasons of Premier League relegation and Champions League qualification revenue. With the appeal process now in motion, the pace of resolution itself becomes the story: Bernstein warns a multi-year appeal would be "a disaster" for English football, while Culture Secretary Nandy is publicly leaning on the Premier League to move fast.
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