Manchester City have been found guilty of serious financial breaches after disguising payments totalling over £900m, prompting former chairman David Bernstein to describe the verdict as worse than expected.
The ruling, delivered in a damning 40-page verdict by the Premier League on Tuesday following a lengthy investigation by an Independent Commission, detailed systematic financial misconduct spanning a nine-year period from 2009 to 2018.
During those nine years, the club won nine trophies, including their first-ever Premier League title. However, the panel found City guilty of creating sham contracts, filing misstated accounts, and failing to cooperate with league investigators.
Daily Mail Sport first reported on Friday that the charges against the club had been upheld. Following that initial report, Bernstein suggested Manchester City should be stripped of their titles if found guilty. But after Tuesday's public release of the ruling, the former chairman admitted he was left aghast.
Speaking on talkSPORT, Bernstein expressed shock at the scale of the findings regarding the club he has supported since boyhood. He questioned whether any penalty could be strong enough to sanction the organization for its actions.
"We knew it wasn't going to be good, but it looks worse than I thought it would do," Bernstein said during his talkSPORT interview. "I can't go through all the charges individually, but they include producing false documentation and duplicate contracts and so on, which has been done systematically over a number of years - you can't have anything much more severe than that."
"I would be very careful with the language I use, but if this was a commercial situation, I would say this is very close to something fraudulent," Bernstein added. "The wording couldn't be more damning, and I've got to give some credit to the Premier League and the people who did all this for coming up with such a detailed scenario." He noted that while the process was difficult, it had to be done.
In a social media clip published by talkSPORT on September 29, 2026, Bernstein called for the Manchester City board of directors to be suspended, reiterating that the verdict looked worse than he had anticipated.
Board Sanctions and Appeal Deadlines
Bernstein stressed that accountability must reach the highest levels of the Manchester City hierarchy. He argued that senior executives who oversaw operations during the nine-year period must face consequences.
"The directors of the club, including the chief executive, who's been there for years and worked through this period, are responsible for the running of the club in every respect," Bernstein said. "If this was a public company, I think the directors, with something as serious as this, (would) have to stand down or be suspended, pending the outcome."
Manchester City have been given until Friday, October 2 to lodge an appeal before the Premier League determines what sanctions will be imposed. Bernstein warned that a prolonged legal battle would be damaging for English football.
"If it drags on for a year or two, heaven forbid, I think that would be the worst thing for everybody," Bernstein said. "But all I would say is that (a punitive financial fine) is not sufficient now. If these charges stand now, and let's say the appeal does not happen or fails, then I'm afraid for the club I love, that they've got to come out of the Premier League. This is beyond awful. I can't think my penalty is strong enough for this. This is absolutely terrible."
Following the release of the verdict, Manchester City issued an official statement declaring that they were surprised and disappointed by what they characterized as the opinion of the commission. The club insisted it possesses irrefutable evidence proving its innocence.
In a video message distributed to Manchester City's 1,000-strong workforce, chief executive Ferran Soriano, who leads executive operations alongside chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, rejected the findings. Soriano railed against what he described as conspiracy theories directed by the Premier League against City and pledged that the club would stop at nothing to defend itself.
In its formal response, the club confirmed its intent to challenge the ruling. "The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements uncompleted," Manchester City stated. "Manchester City will now pursue the appeal avenues open to it, on the basis that the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe."
Disguised Funding and Sham Contracts
The Independent Commission's panel, which concluded its hearing in December 2024, set out detailed findings showing how Manchester City systematically altered their financial records at the Etihad Stadium to the tune of £900m.
According to the panel, City arranged sham contracts with several commercial partners that misrepresented the true agreements between the parties. The club also relied on sham agreements to artificially inflate revenues and reduce operational costs.
The Premier League stated that sponsorship deals were part of a disguised funding scheme. Under this setup, commercial partner companies paid only a fraction of their reported sponsorship fees, while the remainder was secretly funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), the entity that owned the club.
The panel discovered additional sham arrangements funded by ADUG that allowed Manchester City to record lower operating expenses than they actually incurred. This included a sham circular arrangement involving Fordham, an entity that purchased the club's players' image rights, which was also funded by ADUG.
As a result of these financial maneuvers, Manchester City filed misstated accounts and concealed their true financial standing from auditors and football regulators. The Premier League confirmed that had City reported accurately, the club would have been significantly in breach of both Premier League and UEFA spending limits by a very substantial amount during the 2009 to 2018 period, a stretch in which the team won eight major trophies.
Failure to Cooperate and Investigation Origins
Beyond the financial breaches, the Independent Commission found Manchester City guilty of multiple breaches regarding their duties of cooperation and good faith. Witnesses called on behalf of the club were accused of dishonesty during the hearing.
The Premier League's investigation began nearly three years ago, triggered four years earlier by the emergence of internal club emails obtained by a hacker. The panel noted that City failed to assist the inquiry and instead made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the Premier League investigation.
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters released a statement saying the commission's decision vindicated the league's pursuit of the charges. Masters emphasized the league's duty to protect fair competition across English football.
"It is a key responsibility of the Premier League to ensure that the Rules, approved by the clubs themselves, are upheld to protect the integrity of the competition," Masters said. "It is paramount that the League remains competitive and fair for all clubs and for the fans. We take that role extremely seriously."
"This disciplinary case, and this decision, are the most significant in Premier League history," Masters added. "There are elements of the case that remain to be decided, including, importantly, what sanction must follow for these breaches. Now we have the Commission's decision, we are committed to moving swiftly through the remainder of the process, to provide certainty for the League, our clubs and fans."
The verdict comes after years of reporting on the club's financial practices. Daily Mail columnist Oliver Holt wrote following the decision that Manchester City had been exposed as the most famous cheats in English sporting history, arguing that the gory details left no alternative to relegation. Meanwhile, sports writer Ian Herbert noted that he had exposed City's sham deals eight years ago, describing the club's threatening response at the time as the most shocking experience of his 30-year career and stating that he felt vindicated by Tuesday's ruling.
