Status as of 5 October 2026: an independent commission has found Manchester City guilty of the Premier League’s financial charges. City lodged an appeal before the 2 October deadline (ABC and Al Jazeera report it was filed on 1 October) and says it is innocent. The appeal has not been heard, so the findings are not final, and sanctions have not been set. Everything below describes what the commission found and what City argues, not a settled outcome.
The headline number is simple enough to fit in a sentence. Between 2009-10 and 2017-18, City’s accounts recorded £949.94 million of income from Abu Dhabi sponsors. According to the commission’s findings, as reported by Sky Sports, those sponsors actually paid £119.25 million. The remaining £830.69 million came from Abu Dhabi United Group, the company owned by City’s owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The commission called the arrangements “sham” contracts. City says the money came from the Abu Dhabi government, not from the owner’s private company, and that it has “irrefutable evidence”.
What the commission actually decided
The Premier League brought 115 charges. The Guardian reports that 114 were upheld, and the league’s own statement on 29 September says City was found guilty of all the charges about financial breaches, plus three of four charges about failing to cooperate with the investigation. The period covered is nine seasons, from 2009-10 to 2017-18, and the case began in 2018, according to Al Jazeera.
The commission heard 27 witnesses over 42 days, according to Sky Sports. It concluded that City’s witnesses gave knowingly false evidence, and the Guardian reports it described witnesses as “dishonest”. It also said City made “concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the investigation”.
The league’s headline figure is that the arrangements inflated revenue and reduced costs by more than £900 million across the period. Premier League chief executive Richard Masters called the decision “the most significant in Premier League history”.