Manchester City found guilty on 114 of 115 charges that could send them down

Manchester City are unbeaten and top of the Premier League this weekend, yet an independent panel has just found the club guilty on 114 of 115 financial charges spanning almost a decade. Nobody knows the punishment yet, though one finance expert reckons it could be brutal enough to send them down.

114 of the 115 charges were proven

An independent commission has ruled that Manchester City broke Premier League financial rules on 114 of the 115 charges brought against them, with only one charge not proven. It’s the biggest disciplinary verdict English football has ever produced, arriving more than three and a half years after the Premier League first laid the charges in February 2023.

The case goes back almost a decade, covering City’s finances between the 2009/10 and 2017/18 seasons. The commission found the club failed to give an accurate picture of its accounts for nine of those years, didn’t fully disclose what it was paying managers and players, including former boss Roberto Mancini, for six seasons, breached UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules (spending limits designed to stop clubs outspending what they earn), and then failed to properly cooperate once the Premier League’s own investigation began. 

That investigation started with a 2018 leak of hacked internal emails, published by the German outlet Der Spiegel, which first raised questions over how City’s Abu Dhabi ownership was funding the club’s spending.

Why nobody yet knows the punishment 

The guilty verdict comes with no punishment attached, at least for now. The Premier League’s rulebook gives the commission enormous freedom here, from a simple reprimand or fine right up to points deductions, suspension or, in extreme cases, expulsion from the league, and there’s no fixed formula that turns 114 charges into a set number of points.

City say they intend to appeal, though this time they can’t take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the way they did in 2020 when a European ban was overturned there. Instead, both sides have 14 days to appeal to a fresh three-person panel of Premier League judicial figures who weren’t involved in the original hearing, and that panel can only overturn the verdict on narrow grounds such as serious procedural unfairness, not by re-arguing City’s case from scratch. 

In a statement to The Athletic, the club said the “Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements to be completed, and subject to strict confidentiality,” adding that its position “remains the same” as when it was first charged in February 2023.

One expert’s 100-point relegation warning

Before the verdict even landed, football finance expert Kieran Maguire had already set out what a guilty finding could mean. Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Football on Trial podcast, he said a proven case could see City docked somewhere in the region of 60 to 100 points, a deduction so severe it would “effectively guarantee relegation out of the Premier League.”

That would dwarf anything English football has handed out before. Everton were docked 10 points in 2023/24, later cut to six on appeal, for breaching the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (spending limits every top-tier club has to stay under) by around £19.5 million in a single season, with Nottingham Forest given a four point cut the same year for a smaller breach. City’s case covers nine seasons rather than one, so legal experts warn the Everton and Forest cases aren’t really comparable, though they do at least show how far a commission is willing to go.

The verdict lands with City top of the table

The timing of the announcement makes this all the more interesting as to what could happen. City have gone into the current international break unbeaten and top of the Premier League, five wins from five matches under new head coach Enzo Maresca, who only replaced Pep Guardiola this summer after eight trophy-laden years in charge.

Maresca’s first months have been backed with serious money too. On September 1, City paid Chelsea a British-record-equalling £125 million (around €144 million) for Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernández, a marquee signing for the post-Guardiola era that’s made the verdict sting even more for supporters trying to square the club’s current spending power with the version of it just found guilty of hiding that spending before.

Fans split between jokes and genuine alarm

Online, the reaction split fast. Some City fans are rattled: Sintusethu Cele wrote there was “no way we will go to English Championship… how will we explain that to people,” while Tom Benstead asked the question a lot of neutrals were also asking, “How can you appeal 115 charges you’ve been found guilty on? It’s not like it’s only two or three.”

Not everyone treated it as a joke or a panic. Paul, 76, a long-time football fan, wrote: “On a serious note, a fine is not enough is it. Points deducted over several seasons might be an option. Man City will appeal so it could take ages to conclude. It’s a massive issue.”

Rival fans, unsurprisingly, leaned straight into the jokes. “Now you know why Pep left,” wrote John Sampford, echoing dozens of near-identical comments about Guardiola’s exit timing, while another commenter summed up the mood in a short quip: “Pep committed the crime and Enzo will serve time.”

The timing didn’t help Maresca either. Hours after the verdict broke, he posted a calm Instagram photo dump from the international break, captioned “Time to breathe. Time to analyse. Time to learn,” including a shot of him walking barefoot across grass, with comments switched off. Fans mocked it instantly, one popular reply joking he’d “just realised Pep set him up.”

For now, there’s no date for the punishment itself. City’s appeal has to be lodged within 14 days, and until a fresh panel rules on it, the club carries on playing, signing and probably winning as they have been, with a points total hanging over it that could still be torn up.