Man City file attraction with scathing assertion in opposition to ‘opinion of Premier League’
Manchester City have confirmed in a statement they will appeal an independent panel’s guilty verdict after they were found to have breached 114 of the Premier League’s financial rules
Manchester City have filed their appeal(Image: Martin Rickett/PA Wire)
Manchester City have confirmed it will appeal an independent panel’s guilty verdict after they were found to have breached 114 of the Premier League’s financial rules. The guilty verdict was announced of Tuesday, leaving City three days to appeal.
In a statement, shared on Friday (October 2), City said: “Manchester City Football Club can confirm that at 7pm on Thursday 1st October 2026 the Club lodged its comprehensive Appeal against the opinion of the Premier League Commission, in relation to the Premier League disciplinary matter.
“The Club’s firm position is that, on multiple grounds, the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact and is unsafe.
Manchester City have slammed the verdict(Image: Photo by Molly Darlington/Getty Images)
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“The Club is innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League and a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its positions, relating to this case.
“We will continue to respect due process and are necessarily restricted in what we can say further until all proceedings are complete.”
On Tuesday, the verdict found that City had “arranged sham contracts” – which misrepresented the true agreement between the parties – with a number of its commercial partners, as well as relying on “sham” agreements with others, to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs over a nine-year period from 2009 to 2018.
City have been found guilty of arranging “sham” contracts(Image: Getty Images)
A statement said: “The club filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators.”
They added throughout the investigation City “committed multiple breaches of its duties of co-operation and utmost good faith towards the league”.
City, according to the Daily Mail, reject this and the basis of their appeal is that the money were actually paid by the government, which owns the sponsors, rather than the club’s owners Abu Dhabi United Group – meaning no rules were broken.
City will argue where the money came from(Image: Getty Images)
City’s “irrefutable evidence”, that has constantly been referenced throughout the process, is bank statements and witness accounts that prove the sponsorship deals are from government-funded companies.
They will argue the case comes down to down to one question: did the money come from the sponsors, the sponsors’ owners (the Abu Dhabi government) or the club’s owners?
City have always argued it was the government, instead of their owners, that make up in the difference and are expected to reinforce the point that the leaked emails represent false assumptions made by Manchester-based staff.
However, this argument has already been rejected by the independent commission who found the explanation was “concocted well after the event in an attempt to obscure and conceal the realities of the disguised funding scheme”.
