Pinned post
𧾠THREAD: Manchester City, the charges, the evidence, & how justice was delayed.
Manchester City werenât charged because rivals complained or because they 'spent big'. They were charged because evidence shows a decade-long system designed to hide owner funding, inflate revenue & deceive & obstruct investigations.
The Premier Leagueâs case didnât appear overnight.
It began in late 2018, triggered by Football Leaks documents - internal emails, invoices, contracts - that contradicted what City had been telling UEFA & the Premier League for years.
Those emails are the backbone of everything that followed. At the centre of the case is a simple allegation: Manchester City repeatedly disguised owner funding as commercial revenue.
FFP rules require sponsorship income to be real, independent, and market value. What the emails suggest is that Cityâs biggest 'sponsors' werenât paying what City claimed - Abu Dhabi was.
Take Etihad as an example. Leaked emails show City executives discussing Etihad paying only a fraction of headline sponsorship deals, with the shortfall quietly topped up by Abu Dhabi government-linked entities.
One email explicitly references ensuring funds 'come through the correct channels' so they are not detected as separate sources of funding. That is the definition of disguised equity. This wasnât a one-off.
Emails show Etihad deals where shirt sponsorship, stadium, training kit & campus naming rights were all inflated wildly out of line with the market at the time - later confirmed in the actual contracts, not just drafts.
The numbers in the leaks werenât hypothetical. They were real. UEFA auditors suspected this as early as 2013â14.
They found ÂŁ47m of 'intellectual property' sales boosting income, a ÂŁ5m 'win bonus' paid for an FA Cup final City lost & sponsorships from Aabar and Etisalat above market value.
City were fined & restricted - but crucially, UEFA never saw the full records. Why? Because City refused to provide them. This becomes a pattern.
When UEFA charged City again in 2020, they imposed a two-year Champions League ban. City appealed to CAS & had it overturned. City fans shout 'INNOCENT', shared out of context screenshots. They're wrong.
CAS did not rule that City were innocent. CAS ruled that UEFA could not meet the burden of proof - largely because City did not co-operate. City were fined âŹ10m specifically for obstructing the investigation.
Even City's own expert witness was denied access to key information that could have disproved disguised funding. 'No evidence' doesnât mean nothing happened. It means the evidence was withheld.
CAS explicitly stated that disguised equity funding could not be excluded - only that neither side could conclusively prove their case. That vagueness was entirely engineered.
After CAS, new emails emerged suggesting Simon Pearce, a senior City executive & Sheikh Mansour adviser, had given misleading testimony under oath. City declined to comment. Again.
While all this was happening, the Premier League had already been investigating City for years. Cityâs response? Delay. Delay. Delay. Obstruct. Litigate.
Court filings later revealed City challenged the legality of the investigation itself, filed repeated procedural applications, refused to hand over documents, forced arbitration, then challenged arbitration & tried to keep the entire process secret.
A High Court judge called it out in 2021. âIt is surprising, and a matter of legitimate public concern, that so little progress has been made.â Thatâs legal spiel for stonewalling.
This obstruction accounts for 35 of the 115 charges alone & thatâs before we get to the secret payments.
City declared Roberto Mancini's salary as ÂŁ1.45m per year. On the same day he signed with City, he also signed a âconsultancyâ deal with Al Jazira - a club owned by the same man who owns City - worth ÂŁ1.75m per year. That deal was explicitly marked confidential.
Emails show City executives arranging the payments. Same signatures. Same people. Same day. The allegation is obvious: City paid Mancini off the books.
Leaked documents allege undeclared payments for Yaya TourĂŠ, including via third parties. These arenât rumours. Theyâre contracts, emails, invoices. This is why there are 14 charges relating to manager and player remuneration.
Then thereâs image rights. City told UEFA they sold player image rights for a ÂŁ24.5m lump sum to comply with FFP. Later, they quietly resumed earning millions from image rights again.
The buyer? A company whose directors included Cityâs own senior legal officer. Independent journalists couldnât even establish its genuine commercial purpose.
All of this feeds into the core allegation across 54 charges: City failed to provide accurate financial information in good faith. Not once. Not twice. But repeatedly, over nearly a decade.
Now add politics. UK government departments discussed Cityâs charges with the British embassy in Abu Dhabi. Those communications are sealed - because releasing them could 'damage relations with the UAE'. City insist they are not state-backed. Then why is the state involved?
Yet still, the delays continue. A 12-week closed-door hearing. Half a million documents. Years of silence. City remain 'innocent' - not because the evidence disappeared, but because the verdict hasnât landed.
This is why the case matters. If City walk away with a fine, it tells every club to cheat cleverly, obstruct endlessly, spend on lawyers, not compliance.. & the rules collapse.
This isnât about jealousy. It isnât about success. Itâs about whether financial regulation in English football is real - or optional for the richest club in the league.
The evidence exists. The emails exist. The delays are documented. Now only one question remains, do the rules apply to City or not?
Manchester City werenât charged because rivals complained or because they 'spent big'. They were charged because evidence shows a decade-long system designed to hide owner funding, inflate revenue & deceive & obstruct investigations.
The Premier Leagueâs case didnât appear overnight.
It began in late 2018, triggered by Football Leaks documents - internal emails, invoices, contracts - that contradicted what City had been telling UEFA & the Premier League for years.
Those emails are the backbone of everything that followed. At the centre of the case is a simple allegation: Manchester City repeatedly disguised owner funding as commercial revenue.
FFP rules require sponsorship income to be real, independent, and market value. What the emails suggest is that Cityâs biggest 'sponsors' werenât paying what City claimed - Abu Dhabi was.
Take Etihad as an example. Leaked emails show City executives discussing Etihad paying only a fraction of headline sponsorship deals, with the shortfall quietly topped up by Abu Dhabi government-linked entities.
One email explicitly references ensuring funds 'come through the correct channels' so they are not detected as separate sources of funding. That is the definition of disguised equity. This wasnât a one-off.
Emails show Etihad deals where shirt sponsorship, stadium, training kit & campus naming rights were all inflated wildly out of line with the market at the time - later confirmed in the actual contracts, not just drafts.
The numbers in the leaks werenât hypothetical. They were real. UEFA auditors suspected this as early as 2013â14.
They found ÂŁ47m of 'intellectual property' sales boosting income, a ÂŁ5m 'win bonus' paid for an FA Cup final City lost & sponsorships from Aabar and Etisalat above market value.
City were fined & restricted - but crucially, UEFA never saw the full records. Why? Because City refused to provide them. This becomes a pattern.
When UEFA charged City again in 2020, they imposed a two-year Champions League ban. City appealed to CAS & had it overturned. City fans shout 'INNOCENT', shared out of context screenshots. They're wrong.
CAS did not rule that City were innocent. CAS ruled that UEFA could not meet the burden of proof - largely because City did not co-operate. City were fined âŹ10m specifically for obstructing the investigation.
Even City's own expert witness was denied access to key information that could have disproved disguised funding. 'No evidence' doesnât mean nothing happened. It means the evidence was withheld.
CAS explicitly stated that disguised equity funding could not be excluded - only that neither side could conclusively prove their case. That vagueness was entirely engineered.
After CAS, new emails emerged suggesting Simon Pearce, a senior City executive & Sheikh Mansour adviser, had given misleading testimony under oath. City declined to comment. Again.
While all this was happening, the Premier League had already been investigating City for years. Cityâs response? Delay. Delay. Delay. Obstruct. Litigate.
Court filings later revealed City challenged the legality of the investigation itself, filed repeated procedural applications, refused to hand over documents, forced arbitration, then challenged arbitration & tried to keep the entire process secret.
A High Court judge called it out in 2021. âIt is surprising, and a matter of legitimate public concern, that so little progress has been made.â Thatâs legal spiel for stonewalling.
This obstruction accounts for 35 of the 115 charges alone & thatâs before we get to the secret payments.
City declared Roberto Mancini's salary as ÂŁ1.45m per year. On the same day he signed with City, he also signed a âconsultancyâ deal with Al Jazira - a club owned by the same man who owns City - worth ÂŁ1.75m per year. That deal was explicitly marked confidential.
Emails show City executives arranging the payments. Same signatures. Same people. Same day. The allegation is obvious: City paid Mancini off the books.
Leaked documents allege undeclared payments for Yaya TourĂŠ, including via third parties. These arenât rumours. Theyâre contracts, emails, invoices. This is why there are 14 charges relating to manager and player remuneration.
Then thereâs image rights. City told UEFA they sold player image rights for a ÂŁ24.5m lump sum to comply with FFP. Later, they quietly resumed earning millions from image rights again.
The buyer? A company whose directors included Cityâs own senior legal officer. Independent journalists couldnât even establish its genuine commercial purpose.
All of this feeds into the core allegation across 54 charges: City failed to provide accurate financial information in good faith. Not once. Not twice. But repeatedly, over nearly a decade.
Now add politics. UK government departments discussed Cityâs charges with the British embassy in Abu Dhabi. Those communications are sealed - because releasing them could 'damage relations with the UAE'. City insist they are not state-backed. Then why is the state involved?
Yet still, the delays continue. A 12-week closed-door hearing. Half a million documents. Years of silence. City remain 'innocent' - not because the evidence disappeared, but because the verdict hasnât landed.
This is why the case matters. If City walk away with a fine, it tells every club to cheat cleverly, obstruct endlessly, spend on lawyers, not compliance.. & the rules collapse.
This isnât about jealousy. It isnât about success. Itâs about whether financial regulation in English football is real - or optional for the richest club in the league.
The evidence exists. The emails exist. The delays are documented. Now only one question remains, do the rules apply to City or not?
We still haven't had a verdict in the 115 charges against City for (alleged) financial malfeasance. City are spending more money this winter, chasing another title. Ed and Adam pick up the story. @AdamJoseph
Patreon: buff.ly/hvz9uxW
Apple: buff.ly/2pedwZAView quoted post on X
