Manchester City Guilty of Sham Contracts and Misleading Accounts Across Nine Seasons

The Premier League has found Manchester City guilty of all charges relating to breaches of its financial rules between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons, in a 40-page judgment that concluded the club used sham contracts and presented misleading accounts.

BBC Sport's analysis of the period sets £1.2 billion of transfer spending against £830 million of sponsorship income it says was inflated in the club's accounts.

Why a football verdict belongs on a business page

Strip out the sport and what remains is a familiar related-party problem. The finding is that sponsorship income booked from entities connected to the club's ownership was recorded at values the league says were not genuine, which made a regulated financial ratio pass when it would otherwise have failed. That is an accounting question about whether a transaction between connected parties was priced at arm's length — the same question that sits underneath transfer-pricing rules, bank related-party lending limits, and the disclosure obligations of any listed company.

The enforcement lesson is the other half. The charges date from 2009. The verdict arrived in 2026. A regulator that can eventually prove a case but cannot do it inside the period the advantage is being enjoyed is, in practice, pricing the breach rather than preventing it.

What has not been decided

Sanction. The verdict establishes liability; the penalty has not been set, and BBC Sport lists the open questions as running from points deduction through relegation to expulsion, alongside whether any criminal investigation follows. Chief executive Ferran Soriano declined to answer questions on the verdict at a conference of European clubs in Copenhagen.

Open

No penalty has been announced and no timetable for one has been given. The club's response, and whether it intends to appeal, has not been set out.

Sources: BBC Sport, 29 September 2026, BBC Sport, 30 September 2026, BBC Sport, 30 September 2026