Manchester City has long been far more than a football club. In the 2024/25 season, the club generated around £694 million in revenue, belongs to a global network of twelve football clubs and is valued by Forbes at around $5.5 billion.
That makes the implications of a ruling that may initially sound like a purely sporting matter all the greater: an independent Premier League commission has found City guilty of serious breaches of financial rules spanning nine seasons.
According to its findings, revenues were artificially inflated and costs reduced, distorting the club’s reported financial position by more than £900 million.
Manchester City strongly rejects the allegations and intends to appeal.
The commission cites sham contracts
The core of the case concerns the seasons from 2009/10 to 2017/18.
According to the Premier League, the independent commission concluded that Manchester City had entered into so-called “sham contracts” with several business partners — agreements that did not accurately reflect the underlying economic reality.
According to the findings, sponsors were in some cases required to contribute only part of the officially reported sponsorship amounts. The remainder was allegedly financed by the Abu Dhabi United Group, then the club’s owner.
Other arrangements were also allegedly used to make operating costs appear lower than they actually were. These included an agreement concerning the commercial exploitation of players’ image rights.
Overall, revenues were artificially increased and costs reduced, making the club’s reported financial position appear more than £900 million stronger than it actually was.
The commission used unusually explicit language: in its view, City had intended to circumvent Premier League rules. It also found that inaccurate financial statements had been submitted and that the club’s true financial position had been concealed from auditors and football authorities.
Manchester City rejects the allegations in full
The club does not accept that account.
Following publication of the decision, Manchester City said it was “disappointed and surprised”. The club continues to maintain its innocence and says it possesses extensive “irrefutable evidence” supporting its position.
City argues that the decision contains material errors of law, fundamental principle and fact. The club therefore intends to pursue the available avenues of appeal.
Chief executive Ferran Soriano went even further, describing the case, according to n-tv, as the result of a “Premier League conspiracy theory”. He argues that bank statements, payment records and witness testimony demonstrate that the disputed funds did not originate from the owner.
Why sponsorship matters so much under financial rules
To understand the economic dimension of the case, it is necessary to understand why it matters whether money enters a football club as owner funding or as sponsorship revenue.
European football authorities and the Premier League introduced financial rules partly to limit the extent to which owners can continuously finance sporting success with their own capital.
Put simply, clubs are expected to fund a substantial share of their spending from revenues they actually generate.
Sponsorship is one of those regular commercial revenues.
If, for example, an independent company pays £50 million for shirt sponsorship or naming rights, that is in principle commercially generated income.
If the same £50 million ultimately comes from the owner and is merely channelled through a sponsor, however, the economic substance changes.
Owner financing becomes market revenue on paper.
The commission concluded that, without the arrangements it criticised, the club would have significantly exceeded the spending limits imposed by both the Premier League and UEFA.
The rise began in 2008
The timing is striking.
Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan acquired Manchester City in 2008. At the time, the club had a long tradition but was not among Europe’s absolute sporting or financial elite.
City then transformed at extraordinary speed.
New players, training facilities, youth development structures, sponsorship agreements and international marketing turned an English football club into a global sports brand.
Forbes now values Manchester City at around $5.5 billion. That makes it the seventh most valuable football club in the world. For the 2024/25 season, Forbes puts its revenue at the equivalent of around $900 million.
Using its own methodology, Deloitte reports revenue of €829 million and ranks City as the sixth-highest-revenue football club in the world.
The proceedings therefore concern one of the largest sports businesses on the planet.
£694 million in revenue in a single season
Manchester City itself reported revenue of £694.1 million for the 2024/25 financial year.
Of that, £75.1 million came from matchday activities, £278.6 million from broadcasting rights and £340.4 million from commercial activities.
Almost half of operating revenue now comes from sponsorship, marketing, merchandising and other commercial activities.
The club recorded a small loss of £9.9 million in 2024/25, but at the same time generated £95.2 million in profit from player sales. Its net assets stood at more than £850 million.
Manchester City today is therefore economically much larger and more independent than it was at the beginning of the period under investigation.
The dispute, however, concerns precisely the years in which that economic power was being built.
A football club became a global network
The ownership structure now extends far beyond Manchester.
Manchester City belongs to City Football Group. Its majority owner is Newton Investment and Development LLC, which is wholly owned by Sheikh Mansour. US technology investment company Silver Lake holds just under 17 percent.
According to the group, it now includes twelve football clubs around the world.
They include New York City FC, Melbourne City and other clubs across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia.
The group says it reaches more than one billion followers worldwide.
Its business model combines football, broadcasting rights, sponsorship, player development, data, brands and international reach.
Manchester City is the economic and sporting centre of that system.
That is why a ruling on the club’s business practices inevitably carries greater reputational significance than an ordinary disciplinary sanction.
It touches on confidence in the financial architecture on which a global sports brand has been built.
Similar allegations already surfaced in 2020
The case has a long history.
In 2018, Der Spiegel published internal Manchester City documents based on the Football Leaks material. Those disclosures led to investigations by UEFA and later by the Premier League.
In 2020, UEFA initially banned Manchester City from European competitions for two seasons over serious breaches of Financial Fair Play rules and imposed a €30 million fine.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport subsequently overturned the ban.
That decision is sometimes described in simplified terms as an earlier acquittal. In reality, it was more nuanced.
CAS found that there was insufficient evidence for some of the allegations, while other matters were already time-barred under the UEFA rules then in force.
However, a €10 million fine remained in place because of the club’s failure to cooperate.
The current Premier League case is based on a different set of rules and a separate procedure.
According to consistent reports, an appeal to CAS is not available in this case.
The investigation itself became part of the case
The commission did not only criticise the original financial reporting.
Manchester City was also found guilty on several counts of failing to cooperate with the Premier League.
According to the league, the club repeatedly breached its duty to cooperate and act in good faith during the four-year investigation.
The commission referred to deliberate efforts to obstruct the investigation.
Manchester City rejects this account as well and argues that it respected the proper legal and regulatory process over many years.
The dispute therefore no longer concerns accounting and sponsorship alone.
It has become a struggle over how far a sports league can enforce its economic rules against one of its most powerful members.
The potential punishment remains unclear
So far, the commission has ruled on liability.
Sanctions are to be decided separately.
The rules allow for a wide range of possible measures. These include fines, points deductions and even a potential expulsion from the Premier League.
No automatic punishment follows from the ruling already issued.
Possible intervention in past titles is also not currently a decided consequence.
Former City chairman David Bernstein has called for relegation if the club’s appeal fails. Other figures in football have also demanded severe sanctions.
Those are demands — not decisions by the commission.
Manchester City has announced that it will challenge the ruling.
It may therefore take considerable time before the proceedings are finally concluded.
The credibility of a multibillion-euro market is at stake
The economic significance extends far beyond Manchester City.
According to Deloitte, the world’s 20 highest-revenue football clubs generated a combined €12.4 billion in the 2024/25 season for the first time.
Commercial revenue alone — including sponsorship and merchandising — reached €5.3 billion, making it the largest source of income for the leading clubs, ahead even of broadcasting revenue.
Sponsorship is therefore no side business in modern football.
It is part of its economic foundation.
When clubs with different ownership models compete for the same players, coaches, trophies and media revenues, the amount of funding they are permitted to receive directly affects competition.
Financial rules are therefore ultimately competition rules as well.
Manchester City is now too big for this to be just a football story
The club is worth billions, generates hundreds of millions of pounds in annual revenue, sells broadcasting rights, merchandise and sponsorship inventory around the world and forms part of an international network of football businesses.
Sporting success increases revenue.
Higher revenue enables investment in players.
That, in turn, increases the probability of further sporting success.
This is why the source of that revenue matters so much.
The independent commission has given its answer: in its view, the system was distorted for years by financing that was not correctly reported.
Manchester City fundamentally rejects that finding and is now relying on the appeals process.
It is therefore not yet clear what sanction will follow or whether the ruling will stand in its present form.
Yet for professional football, more is already at stake than a possible punishment for a single club.
The question is whether economic rules in a multibillion-euro market can be enforced even against its most powerful companies.
SK
