Man City Verdict: How £830 Million in Fake Sponsorship Money Bankrolled a £1.2 Billion Transfer Spree

Since the Premier League confirmed Tuesday, September 29, that an independent commission found Manchester City guilty on 114 of 115 financial charges, the 40-page ruling itself has become the story. It lays out, in granular detail, how the club spent roughly £1.2 billion on transfers between summer 2009 and January 2018 while an Abu Dhabi-backed scheme pumped in more than £830 million of falsely inflated sponsorship income, according to BBC Sport's analysis of the commission's findings.

That £1.2 billion bought a roster that included Kevin De Bruyne, Sergio Aguero, Fernandinho and David Silva, and it underwrote three Premier League titles, one FA Cup and three EFL Cups in a club that had gone without a major trophy since 1970. The commission did not conclude City couldn't have competed at all without the scheme. It concluded, according to BBC Sport, that City could not have signed the quantity and quality of players they did without what the ruling calls a 'concerted campaign to falsify' the club's accounts.

How the scheme worked

According to a separate BBC Sport breakdown of the ruling, City's ownership group, Abu Dhabi United Group, knew from the 2009-10 season that the club's spending would blow past what was then the Premier League's record single-season loss, £140 million, set by Chelsea in 2006. With UEFA and the Premier League both preparing financial fair play rules, the club needed a way to convert owner cash into revenue that looked like it came from somewhere else.

The fix, per the ruling as reported by BBC Sport, split sponsorship contracts into two pieces: a base fee the commercial partner actually paid, and a 'tagged sum' that Abu Dhabi United Group covered on the sponsor's behalf. On paper, City's sponsorship income looked legitimate and market-rate. In reality, the ruling found, the sponsors themselves were only ever required to pay a fraction of what the contracts said.

The Premier League, in a statement carried by the Evening Standard, said the commission determined City relied on "sham agreements to artificially inflate the club's revenues and reduce its costs." The arrangement let City avoid breaking the Premier League's loss record in 2009-10. The commission tallied more than £900 million in artificially inflated revenue and reduced costs across the nine seasons from 2009-10 to 2017-18, the Evening Standard reported, which folds in both the roughly £830 million disguised sponsorship funding and about £90 million in hidden expenses identified separately by BBC Sport.

Witnesses called dishonest

The ruling also took aim at City's own defense, finding that testimony from "a number of important factual witnesses called to give evidence on behalf of the club was false in a number of key respects," according to the Premier League statement reported by the Evening Standard. The commission stated some of those witnesses "had given evidence at the hearing that they knew to be untrue and so had been dishonest."

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters called it "the most significant" disciplinary case in league history, telling reporters, per the Evening Standard, that "the core decision establishes the facts of what happened at Manchester City during this period" and that it "vindicates the Premier League's decision to pursue this case."

City's defense and what's still unresolved

Manchester City has not conceded the point. The club said it was "disappointed and surprised" by the verdict and remains "innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League," vowing to be "relentless" in pursuing an appeal, according to the Associated Press, carried by CBC Sports. City has argued throughout the three-and-a-half-year process that the commercial deals reflected genuine market value and that the case rests on selectively read emails. That defense has not yet been tested by an appeal panel, and no sanction has been set.

Masters himself acknowledged the case isn't finished, saying "there are elements of the case that remain to be decided, including, importantly, what sanction must follow for these breaches," per the Evening Standard. The Associated Press reports sanctions could range from a large points deduction to outright expulsion from the league.

That unresolved sanction is now the center of the story. BBC Sport reports some rival clubs are already seeking legal advice on whether they can pursue financial compensation for lost revenue or trophies during City's run of dominance, and fans have started calling the 2009-2018 stretch the "asterisk era" in anticipation that titles could eventually be stripped. Neither the Premier League nor the commission has announced a timeline for the sanctions hearing, and no titles have been vacated. Manchester City's appeal, whenever it is filed, will determine whether any of this ruling survives review before punishment is even decided.