An independent commission found Manchester City guilty of all financial-rules charges. City have appealed and say they are innocent. No sanction is set yet.
Manchester City have been found guilty by an independent commission, and they are fighting it. That is the whole state of play, so it is worth being exact about who said what.
The Premier League published its statement on 29 September 2026. It says the commission found City guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the league's financial rules over nine seasons, from 2009/10 to 2017/18. It also found City guilty of most of the charges about failing to co-operate with the investigation: three of four were upheld.
What the commission found
According to the Premier League's summary, the commission concluded that City arranged contracts with commercial partners that it labelled shams, filed misstated accounts and were significantly in breach of both Premier League and UEFA spending limits.
The league says the disguised funding came through sponsors who paid only part of their fees, with the remainder funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment and Development Ltd (ADUG), which owned the club at the time. It describes further arrangements, including one involving an entity called Fordham that bought players' image rights.
The league says the purpose was to inflate revenue and cut costs by more than £900m. Sky Sports puts the revenue inflation at £830m, so the headline number depends on which account you read. The commission concluded the club "clearly intended to circumvent the PL Rules".
City's response
City lodged their appeal at 7pm on Thursday 1 October, according to the club's own statement as quoted by Sky Sports. The club says the commission's opinion contains "clear material errors, of law, principle and fact" and calls City innocent, backed by what it describes as irrefutable evidence. The club says it will not say more until proceedings are complete.
What is still open
No punishment has been set. Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said elements of the case remain to be decided, importantly the sanction, which will be dealt with in a separate private hearing with the commission. The league's rules list fines and points deductions among the options open to a commission.
The league's stated aim is to finish the whole process, appeals included, as soon as possible. Sky Sports News' Kaveh Solhekol says the league's rules give an appeal 12 weeks from filing, which points to the week before Christmas, though he notes City could argue that the new timetable should not apply to them.
UEFA is watching. Sky Sports reported on 6 October that UEFA will wait for the end of the Premier League process before deciding whether to act. Sky also recalls that City were banned from European competition for two years by UEFA in 2020, a ban the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned.
Why it matters
Masters called the case and the decision the most significant in Premier League history. The findings cover nine seasons of accounts, and the league has not said what the sanction will be.
Until the appeal and the sanction hearing are done, the honest position is the unglamorous one. The commission has made its findings, City say those findings are wrong, and the punishment is still to come. On the pitch, City lost 1-0 to Brighton on Saturday, according to BBC Sport's scoreboard.
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