Redacted witnesses, possible sale and £900m 'sham': 10 bombshells from Man City judgement

· Mirror

Manchester City's financial breaches have been exposed in a 40-page report produced by the Premier League, detailing the independent commission's findings after a hearing in 2024

It is as damning as it is long. The 40-page document produced by the Premier League on Tuesday has sent shockwaves around world football - and ruptured perpetrators Manchester City to the core.

Found guilty of 114 of the 115 charges levelled at them in February 2023, City maintain their innocence and deny breaching the Premier League's financial rules. The club have already confirmed that they'll appeal before Friday's deadline.

In the meantime, fans are sifting through the lengthy document, understanding the scale of what has been deemed a nine-year 'sham' operation to inflate revenue and reduce costs by £900million, misstate accounts and conceal the club's true finances.

Mirror Football has dug deep into the findings and found 10 bombshells.

1. A detailed hearing

The all-important hearing spanned 42 days, taking place between September and December 2024. It included oral testimony from 27 factual and expert witnesses while millions of pages of documents, expert reports, and roughly 7,000 pages of verbatim transcripts were looked at during the proceedings.

2. Project Longbow

In 2012, the year of City's first Premier League title win under Roberto Mancini, launched Project Longbow, a 'multi-strand project' designed to boost revenues and reduce losses. The panel's ruling said that 'many of the strands of Project Longbow were genuine, legitimate attempts to achieve those aims. One was not'.

This was the 'Fordham arrangement', where a third-party company was used as a 'front' for the trading of player's image rights to disguise Abu Dhabi money that was pumped into the club, removing an expense from the club's outgoings.

3. Chelsea fear

The commission found that City feared exceeding Chelsea's then-record annual loss of £140m during the 2009-10 season - one year after Sheikh Mansour's takeover. It was 'against that background' that Project Longbow was devised to disguise the club's shareholder funding as commercial revenue.

4. Secret £830m funding

The Premier League panel confirmed that City used a 'Disguised Funding Scheme' between 2009 and 2018 to improperly declare £949.94m as commercial sponsorship revenue. Just £119.25m of that was proven to be legitimate base fee payments courtesy of Abu Dhabi sponsors.

The remaining £830.69m was, the panel said, direct funding provided by Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG). Legally, it should have been recorded as equity contributions rather than sponsorship income.

This raises further questions over whether City are a state-owned club and will be an immediate dilemma for the new Independent Football Regulator. There's also the 'fit and proper' owners test which will almost certainly need to be reviewed in the case of City.

One punishment that has been mooted is forcing Sheikh Mansour to sell the club. The last owner to be forcibly removed from the Premier League is Roman Abramovich at Chelsea in 2022.

5. The truth about sponsorship fees

Season - total (Actually paid)

- 2009-10 - £27.0m (£4.5m) - 2010-11 - £41.25m (£12.75m) - 2011-12 - £86.75m (£16.0m) - 2012-13 - £121.75m (£16.0m) - 2013-14 - £127.5m (£16.0m) - 2014-15 - £123.2m (£16.0m) - 2015-16 - £136.17 (£16.0m) - 2016-17 - £140.59 (£11.0m) - 2017-18 - £145.73m (£11.0m)

Total - £949.94m (£119.25m)

6. Man City's lies in context

City's revenue overstatement of £854.5m between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons was more than the total revenues during that period of all but eight English clubs. Those were the other 'Big Six' teams alongside Everton, West Ham and Newcastle.

The £854.5m in misstated revenue made up 30 per cent of City's total revenue in that time. Everton, it should be noted, were deducted eight points for breaching Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) by £25m.

7. Secret payments

A crucial aspect of charge 1 (b) involved alleged secondary or secret payments made to a redacted employee beyond his primary employment contract. The commission evaluated contracts linked to Abu Dhabi-based entities to determine if total the employee's compensation was improperly disguised or omitted from any official filings.

8. 'Dishonest' witnesses

One of the most shocking parts of the report outlined that City's witnesses gave evidence 'that they knew to be untrue and so had been dishonest'. In fact, the list of key witnesses, lawyers and other names were redacted in the commission's ruling.

9. Man City's one success

City were found not guilty of just one of the 115 charges. That was 4 (b), a minor charge to do with co-operating with the Premier League over their finances.

10.The 'final award'

In a case riddled with long delays and mired in legal argument, there was even an appeal over from one of the two sides as when to publish the independent commission's judgement. The Premier League statement confirms that this happened, before it could release the 'final award' ruling.

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