Manchester City spent huge sums in financial breach period - Premier League

Spread the word Manchester City's remarkable transformation into one of European football's dominant clubs coincided with a nine-season period in which an independent Premier League commission has now found the club guilty of serious financial rule breaches. The findings relate to the period between the 2009/10 and 2017/18 seasons, covering the years in which City significantly expanded their squad and established themselves as a major force in English football.

During that period, the club recruited a succession of high-profile players, including Sergio Agüero, Yaya Touré and Kevin De Bruyne, while also winning their first Premier League titles of the modern era. Blueprint reports The Premier League said the independent commission found that City had used commercial arrangements that artificially inflated the club's revenues and reduced its costs by more than £900 million over the affected period.

The league said the arrangements enabled the club to appear compliant with financial regulations when, according to the commission's findings, its actual financial position would have placed it in substantial breach of spending limits. What the Premier League found According to the Premier League, Manchester City entered into what the commission described as "sham" contracts with a number of commercial partners.

The league said some of the sponsorship arrangements were structured in a way that meant the stated sponsorship value was not entirely paid by the sponsors themselves. The commission found that companies associated with City's commercial network paid only part of certain sponsorship fees, while the remainder was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd, the organisation that owned the club.

The Premier League said similar arrangements were used to reduce the club's reported operating costs. The league further said City filed accounts that misstated its financial position and concealed the true state of its finances from auditors and football regulators.

It concluded that the arrangements were designed to help the club circumvent financial rules governing profitability, sustainability and UEFA financial fair play. More than £900m in disputed financial adjustments The scale of the finding is central to the case.

The Premier League said the schemes had the effect of artificially increasing City's reported revenues and reducing its costs by more than £900m across the nine-season period. The figure does not mean that the commission found City had simply received £900m in cash that was then spent on transfers.

Rather, it refers to the financial impact of the arrangements identified by the commission and the difference between what the club reported and what the commission found to be the underlying position. This distinction is important because claims circulating online have linked the case directly to City's transfer spending.

While the club spent enormous sums assembling its squad during the period, the Premier League's published finding specifically concerns the accuracy of financial reporting, commercial arrangements, costs and compliance with spending regulations. Transfer era featuring Agüero, Touré and De Bruyne The period covered by the findings coincided with some of the most important recruitment in City's history.