Manchester City Reportedly Found in Breach of 114 of 115 Premier League Rules

Tony Pulis found the same question waiting for him from Stoke City supporters. “When do we get our FA Cup?” they asked.

In 2011 at Wembley, Manchester City had beaten Pulis’s Stoke 1-0. That single goal began City’s long run of silverware. Now the former manager answered it straight. “I thought exactly the same. While the process is far from over because Manchester City are expected to appeal, I have to say this verdict and the whole situation has left a very sour taste in my mouth.”

He did not stop there. “I don’t expect Manchester City to phone me or the club up and offer back the 2011 FA Cup and the winners’ medals their players received.” Nor did he imagine a broader rewind of the years that followed. “I don’t seriously believe any other trophies and titles will be handed back over either. A points deduction and a massive fine feels far more likely. But I still feel cheated.”

News of the ruling broke on a Friday. The Athletic carried the first report that an independent panel had reached its decision. BBC Sport’s Sami Mokbel followed, then Mike Keegan and Luke Power in the Daily Mail, Matt Hughes, Paul MacInnes and Will Unwin in the Guardian, and Xavier Greenwood. One hard fact cut through every account. Manchester City had been found guilty on 114 of the 115 Premier League charges. Some reporting put the total as high as 130.

Neither the Premier League nor the club officially confirmed it. The league declined to comment. City issued only a carefully worded statement that neither confirmed nor denied the outcome.

“The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements to be completed, and subject to strict confidentiality. As such, Manchester City FC’s position remains consistent with the club’s statement of February 2023. The club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis that the Premier League Board and Executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator, free from partisan influence.”

The charges themselves reached back years before any panel sat. In 2018 the German magazine Der Spiegel published articles built from internal club documents released through Football Leaks, the cache assembled by Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto. Those papers set two investigations in motion. UEFA acted first. In February 2020 it banned Manchester City from European competition for two years and levied a €30 million fine. The Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned the ban and cut the fine to €10 million, leaving only the penalty for failure to cooperate. The Premier League carries no statute of limitations, unlike UEFA’s five-year ceiling, so its own inquiry could stretch back to 2009.

The league charged the club in February 2023 after four years of work. The allegations covered nine seasons from 2009-10 through 2022-23; the core claims sat between 2009 and 2018. An independent hearing opened on 16 September 2024, ran twelve weeks behind closed doors, and closed on 6 December 2024.

Fifty-four of the charges concerned inaccurate financial information supplied between 2009-10 and 2017-18. Fourteen more addressed incomplete details of payments to players and managers across the same seasons. Five alleged breaches of UEFA Financial Fair Play rules from 2013-14 to 2017-18. Seven cited violations of the Premier League’s own Profitability and Sustainability Rules between 2015-16 and 2017-18. The final thirty-five charged the club with failing to cooperate with the league’s investigators from December 2018 until the formal charges arrived in February 2023.

Club chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak addressed supporters in an open letter that never named the reported panel decision. He struck a defiant note instead. “While some people have been quick to reach their own conclusions, and there is so much noise swirling around us, nothing has changed. We have faced challenges together before and have prevailed.”

He held to the same line on the longer fight ahead. “The Premier League process still has a long way to run, and our confidence and intent in proving the Club’s innocence is just as strong as when this began...” Confidentiality, he said, stopped him from saying more. What he could offer was the calendar. He pointed fans toward the away trip to Anfield against Liverpool and the Champions League night against Paris Saint-Germain at the Etihad, moments to celebrate the strength of the Manchester City family.

Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham had already served legal notices reserving the right to seek compensation. Everton supplied the nearest working measure of what a guilty finding can cost. Docked six points for two breaches of the Profitability and Sustainability Rules, the club was ordered in June to pay Burnley nearly £40 million on the grounds that a retrospective punishment would have kept the Clarets in the top flight. Everton appealed.

Football finance experts told The Observer that a 60-to-100-point deduction would be the likely consequence of a guilty verdict on this scale. At the lower end, applied to the current season, it would leave the club fighting relegation; at the higher end it would confirm it. David Bernstein, the club’s former chairman, looked at the transfer spending that continued under the cloud of the charges and reached a blunt judgment. “The fact they have done this (transfer spend) against the background of the 115 Premier League charges is extraordinary and makes a mockery of regulation in England’s top division, supposedly the best-run league in the world.”

Even with the reported finding of guilt, the independent panel has not yet held its separate sanctions hearing. No punishment has been set. Premier League rules give the panel wide discretion: a fine, a points deduction that could be applied to past seasons and titles, a suspension, or, in the most serious case, expulsion from the league. Manchester City are expected to appeal any findings. Other clubs have already begun seeking legal advice on possible compensation claims. Until the sanctions phase opens, every outcome from a fine to relegation remains on the table.

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