City guilty

About time, now the fairest thing to do is for City to hand back all of their titles they stole, and rightfully hand them back to Arsenal and Liverpool, otherwise the league will lose credibility, Serie A did it. Kind Regards.

guilty of 114 out of 115 charges reportedly. They will appeal and drag it out for another couple of years. Has to be a severe sanction. Ridiculous levels of cheating.

I'd say they knew it was coming for a while. Got that impression once Pep announced he was leaving.

I thought this was known ages ago, 2 years or so.

Too big to fail, maybe, but is there an
actual punishment suggested?

Spurs will APPEAL
If they get relegated

Will they be Punnished this Season , points Deduction ?

City denied absolutely everything and would found guilty of everything, costing over 100 mil in process, maybe more.

The punishment has to be severe because how could it not, that means relegation and/or all titles and trophies handed to the rightful winners.

Arsenal could sign Haaland on the cheap.

He'd rather take up cricket then play for that shower of shoite...

is that Premier League champions and CL runners up? ysdc

Yup only took the ****s 24 years w@nk stain...

Make 'em play a season with a handless goalie.

They won't be punished this season as they'll appeal and any sanction will be suspended pending the appeal which will likely be 2028 at the earliest.

The charges relate to 2009-2018 but their success since then is tainted by it too. Not sure about titles being stripped before or after that period but they should be imo.

The owners appear not to think that they'll be demoted but are perhaps anticipating a transfer ban at least, given the spending in the summer, although most of it was spent on direct replacements for players leaving.

Hard to imagine flouting of the rules on a grander scale given the nature and extent of it. They have to be seen to throw the book at them now.

I look forward to the result of the appeal process, I will need to be brought out of my cryogenisis to witness the result as I doubt I will be around in 2099 naturally.

Theres going to be a big
ASTERISK on all their
trophyies

They should be made to pay all the costs to the FA and docked enough points to ensure relegation to one of the lower leagues.

Pointless fining them whatever the amount , no clubs in the championship would want them relegated as 1 less promotion place .
I expect a meaningless fine and a points deduction which leaves them just above the relegation zone , so basically 1 season out of europe .

Sep 25, 2026 -- 4:05PM, DIE LINKE wrote:

Make 'em play a season with a handless goalie.

They cut hands off in the UAE if a person is caught stealing, so perhaps His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan should cut his own hands off,seems fair to me....................

City need to play in convict strip - orange with black arrows

A massive loss of face in Abu Dhabi

Sep 25, 2026 -- 3:58PM, feed the goat...... wrote:

Yup only took the ****s 24 years w@nk stain...

22 years, not 24 years, maths not your strongest point either is it, ysdc

The charges relate to 2009-2018 but their success since then is tainted by it too.

Who knows what they were also up to post 2018 that has not yet come to light.

What about all the players who missed out on bonuses?

The charges are also criminal
Namely FRAUD and money laundering
Scotland yard should perscute
Go to the Old Bailey

Club should have its turnover rebased, and start again in league 2,with spending limited to 2million a season.

Let them regrow the same as all others do

It's not cheating though, really. It's fraud, and on a pretty big scale. What Man Utd got up to in the 90's, and what many big clubs get up to on a regular basis is cheating. This is more serious than that, isn't it?

There will not be one Championship club hoping that city are relegated .

Billionaires can buy trophies. This is nothing new in Football. Given that the sport's governing

body is FIFA it's not surprising.

So they are going to appeal, what may I ask as no punishment mentioned yet. ?

The Cheating Oil Merchants deserve the book to be thrown at them.

4.4 to win premier......4.4 to be relegated

City have a new 1.5bn 10 year deal with Ethihad which covers kit, training ground and stadium naming rights and it was basically rubbed stamped by the PL, so they are still going to have ridiculous sponsorship deals and not lose sponsors because they are nearly all related.

They also have a new 1bn 10 year kit deal with Puma, biggest ever for a PL team, which is also ridiculous. That's 250m a year on average between them.

Surely Puma could pull out of it in light of the ruling, especially given a huge points deduction or even relegation is realistically on the cards.

Get ready for an unbelievable fudge

Financial fraud on a massive scale. Sponsors will be running for cover like rats leaving a sinking ship. What a stain on achievements over the years.

The PL might take a leaf out of the Tour De France and the Lance Armstrong debacle. i.e. expunge Man City from the records with no winner substituted in. Fans missed out celebrating their own team success in any case...

Players missed out on bonuses.

Agents missed out on their 15% of those bonuses.

Expect a blizzard of claims.

Don't think that should happen Storm, it's bit like Wimbledon having no 2020 winner because of Covid, leaves a hole in it's history, there should always be a designated winner be it the cheats or whoever finished runner up. Cycling however was different, problem with the tour de France during that EPO era was that you'd probably have to go back several dozen cyclists behind Lance Armstrong to find the first actual clean rider who could claim first place. Cycling during that period was simply a case of May the Best Chemist Win.

If they had any decency they wouldn't appeal and accept their punishment.

I have yet to see any statement from the club or it's owners so I'm guessing they will be appealing some of these 114 verdicts.

In response to being found guilty on almost all of the charges, a Manchester City spokesperson told The Athletic: “The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements to be completed, and subject to strict confidentiality. As such, Manchester City FC’s position remains consistent with the club’s statement of February 2023.

“The club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis the Premier League board and executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator, free from partisan influence.”

The Premier League should announce sanctions on the club now and make it clear to Man City that if they appeal and fail sanctions will be increased breach by breach appealed. Similar to how courts treat Points/Fines for speeding when they go to court instead of being accepted.

No surprise if the Abu Dhabi ownership pull out and leave the club floundering on the rocks of their own dishonesty.

Mes, I think you are spot on with the Tour de France analogy I used. I hope so!

whats won the pitch hould tay one,how far do you go , this will drag on past this eaon and if vcity win the EPL/CH LG thi eaon for example it wa obviously greatly impacted.helped them grow by breaking the rules 8/10 yr,s ago, EFL are a eperate body and wont stand idley by if their flaghip championship 27/28 season is made far less competitive , the madness will be this city team wont be considered cheats and probably get parachute £ if relegated

They are cheats though.

Always will be, it depends what football wants to do.

All that ref fixing in Spain, and very little happened.

i,d look at it the other look at all the clubs who beat city,won trophies with city taking part ,whilt they were breaking the rules it enhances their achievements

anyone trying to sell a  bridge or a chocolate fireguard ,elliot anderson and his agent might be worth a ring,they must be open to any auld poney their told

There's no point in the Premier League giving them some huge points deduction next season as all that's mean is guaranteed relegation with a City side going through the motions playing academy players all season long as all their best players would obviously have left the club, and all other 19 clubs guaranteed 6 points off them during the season. It has to be instant relegation from next year, not sure why they have to stop at league 2 either, should be put to the bottom of the football pyramid.

At least we wont have to listen to gobby Man Noel Gallaghers as much anymore either way.

Kind Regards.

Those 2 10 year deals City put in place in 2025 were done with all this in mind. It guarantees them 250m revenue for 10 years and means that in the very worst case scenarios (relegation or demotion further down the pyramid, even a forced sale) they will have PL/CL revenues and will be able to pay their top players and comply with financial rules.

They also tied Haaland down until 2034 in 2025 and signed a number of younger players on big money this summer. There may of course be release/relegation clauses in those contracts but I'd imagine with all this in mind, City may have negotiated them to only apply after 1 year outside the PL perhaps.

That Etihad deal in particular now must be scrutinised. What arms-length sponsor would commit to a deal like that for 10 years with a verdict on the 115 imminent? The commitment is even more suspect than the amounts given the imminent verdict.

Re the 10 year deal with Puma for 1bn - Puma also provides kits for other clubs in the City football group in Melbourne, Lommel, Girona, Montevideo, Palermo, Troyes and Bolivia, so I'd say it will stay in place if the worst happens.

Make them sell players to compensate other clubs, shareholders, players and agents.

Like a failing council put them in Special measures for 10 years

It will drag on for years , Man City will appeal every charge , given it has taken years so far , that will be a few more years , then when they get the sentence , they will appeal every charges sentence , again a few more years .

It wont go on for years according to the financial legal expert Borson who said all the the charges they've been found guilty of are factual.

You all forget the old saying.
MONEY CAN OPEN ANY DOOR
and it still can.

I think the PL appeal process is fairly swift with tight deadlines for appeal, decision etc so the sanctions may land this season. But City will go to court after that. One source told ESPN that they tried to get an injunction yesterday to prevent reporting about the verdict

Just complete contempt for the rules, lies, cheating and lawyering up from day 1 for 15+ years.

What would you as a business pay a year for shirt sponsorship in 2025 with 115 hanging over them with the prospect of your company name on the shirt of official cheats? 150m a year average with a 10 year commitment? That's even more ridiculous than the initial deal they had with Etihad.

Need to ban state ownership, associated party sponsorship completely and do something about these groups of clubs agreeing deals as a group and moving players around the group. It's all done to circumvent the rules and muddy the waters. Savinho (Savio) was a record signing for Troyes, a City group club, but never played for them because they loaned him out to PSV and Girona while Troyes got relegated 2 years in a row. Then he moved to City for £30m after Girona finished 3rd in la Liga.

they cant jut bne booted in EFL ,EFL i a different body/organisation to the EPL

rangers went bankrupt out of buisness,the rangers that went in to 3rd tier of scottish lg wasnt the ame buisness/club that went bust

Under Premier League rules, City would have 14 days from the announcement of the verdict to submit an appeal and the process that follows should be completed in less than 12 weeks from then. Once the appeal has been heard – which should happen in one block of no more than five days – and a verdict reached, the appeal panel are also expected to publish written reasons behind their decisions. We should also see the written reasons from the original judicial panel too

As yet no verdict has been announced.

To be fair they got off with one of the charges so there may be some light at the end of the Division 2 tunnel.

All of those consequences seem appropriate in a fair and just world. Guess what...

I believe the one charge they were found not guilty of was "Overcrowding"

^^^

If the other clubs affected lawyer up then Citeh will end up going bust

That might be the best outcome anyway

That is exactly the reason for the big long term sponsorship deals. Insurance.

To me this is grade A horse manure.
Kangaroo court has gone to town on Citeh on the basis of 'fair market value' of sponsorships.

Oh and btw all Liverpool and Arsenal fans...
The verdict as it has been leaked thus far, seems to imply City were guilty of PSR discretions from 2015 to 2018.
None of those seasons were Liv or Ars robbed of a title.
However...
I do believe a certain mr joseph mourinho was second in 2018 with another Manchester club.
That puts Man U back on top of the tree as 'Most successful English soccer club'.
Just saying..

A demotion to the Championship League is the least. A deduction of points is inadequate given the severity of the transgression, and wholly non-deterrent. The punishment must fit the crime; Man City CHEATED masquerading illicit funds prohibited by the Premier League to be used for buying players and beefing up their squad.

It's got nowt to do with value of sponsorships.

It's financial doping beyond that via payments from an undeclared funding source.

A bit lit, say arsenal, paying players an
extra 20million to join club and paying it via the chairman's girlfriend to the players wives.

Obviously arsenal are not doing that, but it's a quick example of what type of stuff
Citeh were pulling, and documented in their emails that were hacked.

As per ESPN, the charges break down into about 4 categories.
The most contentious would be innacurate financial accounting. (Some 50 odd charges)
Which I should think involves an analysis of City's revenues.
Half of these revenues are easily detectable coming as they do from tv money and matchday revenues, as reported presumably to hmrc.
The other half will be from commercial revenues. Global partnerships, sponsorships and retail.
I would contend that it is in this area that the 'independent commission' may have concentrated for their 'inaccuracies'.
The assumption I would make is that these commercial revenues did not comply with 'fair market value' as was the case in 2011 with the sponsorship of the stadium in 2011 (outside the remit of this commission).
The biggest allegation around the paying of employees, as I understand it, involves Bobby Mancini getting $1.5m for coaching in the Arabian peninsular.
Have to say I don't see Sheikh Mansour involving himself in anything as crass as using his wife to pay KdB's wages....

oh dear, Guehi.

wrong fred, never mind.

Err, you will be surprised, I obviously made
up the example.

The emails were reported ages ago.

Efl don't want Citeh, they may have no league to play in.

Alongside questions over the involvement of the Abu Dhabi state in making payments to City, the Premier League are also reported to be looking into claims City recruited the then 14-year-old player Brahim Díaz, contrary to Fifa’s rules over the movement of minors. Der Spiegel claims that ADUG also paid €360,000 in compensation to Díaz’s youth team, indirectly via Spanish intermediaries.

The Premier League is further reported to be investigating claims that were also part of the Football Leaks files, which appear to show that as manager Mancini both received a salary from City and a larger annual “consultancy” fee from Al Jazira Club, a group controlled by Sheikh Mansour. The supplementary fee was allegedly devised in order to circumvent Uefa’s financial fair play rules.

First CRACKS
Guehi defense error
Probably thinking
will i be paid in League TWO?

REilli now

Spurs bought Gazza's folks a house back in the day. To steal him from under the noses of Man Utd.
Fergus bought Beckham's folks a house to stop Goldenballs joining Spurs.

You want to relegate clubs for transfer inducements then we will end up with Corinthian Casuals in the UCL.
Might not be a bad thing really....

Yeah, and it'll be in the books.

These were hidden to avoid being caught cheating

But they talked about cheating in emails
that got leaked.

Emails which were obtained illegally by the way of an enterprising individual from Portugal.
Who flogged them quicksmart to some holier-than-thou German journos.

Evidence acquired in such a manner would be inadmissible in a court of law.
Which is where this matter may well be going. If the League-2-relegation-100-point-penalty merchants have their way.

the fairest thing to do is for City to hand back all of their titles they stole, and rightfully hand them back to Arsenal and Liverpool, otherwise the league will lose credibility, Serie A did it.

And how did that work out for Serie A? About as well as "Bobby in the shower" worked out for Dallas.

If people find out that the matches they watched didn't ultimately decide the title (because it all gets voided down the line) they stop watching the matches. Serie A never recovered it's status.

And how do you just fix things by handing the title to the team that were runners up? If you go back and retcon the seasons then City don't get dropped to 2nd, they get dropped to 20th.

5 clubs that were relegated in 18th place during 2009-2019 have never returned to the premier league. If United get a couple of titles those 5 clubs will be expecting £500M each for lost revenue.

"Bobby in the shower" worked out for Dallas.

I've no idea what this is or what this means

Serie A's decline really didn't have much to do with the Calciopoli scandal even though it was cited as being a reason, it really wasn't a key reason at all, Serie A was going downhill anyway as the financial gap between them and the Premier League in particular was growing exponentially so they couldn't pay big wages and attract big stars to their biggest clubs anymore, that and the fact they mostly don't own their own stadiums and have to rent them so revenues further limited, though it's changing, Juve when they built there's, were the only club in the league at the time to own theirs, think the Milan clubs recently bought theirs and the surrounding land. Premier League's foothold abroad  and subsequent broadcasting rights split between the PL clubs was a game changer than the Italians couldn't compete with hence trying to play games abroad to sell themselves like the Spanish. The two big Spanish clubs managed to stay on top for years as they negotiated their own personal broadcasting deals rather than the league collectively.

I didn't say City would be dropped to 2nd, but if they have cheated the team in 2nd place, then the team in 2nd place should be rightfully retrospectively awarded the titles. There is obviously the run-on affect of teams that were then relegated that shouldn't have been, but it's more important for the optics and marketing point of views given how huge the international broadcasting rights are, that there is seen to have been a winner rather than leaving a big black hole in it's history as history. City can be retrospectively put in 20th place, but you obviously can't hand back league places to all those teams, the only alternative there is for those teams to sue them.

Kind Regards.

The sentence aint even out yet and the hang'em-flog'em brigade are calling for the sort of extreme punishments not seen since Game of Thrones was on air.

Tober has nailed it with his Serie A analogy.
This City business could do reputational damage to English football.
Pretty soon we will be back to the bad old days of red cartel domination. A glass ceiling, investment drying up, the on-field product getting worse while La Liga runs away into the distance.

Thats the problem with this country. An olde worldy mentality of bitterness and resentment for innovation and success.
This could well be the day when the day the worm turned on the EPL.

We seem to have moved on from you pretending
that Citeh havnt cheated and there is no evidence.

Epl don't want the cheats

The other 3 leagues don't want the cheats

Where will they go?

Parma and Fiorentina were already going through financial collapses before that scandal as an example, Italian clubs were just badly run in general, had poor outdated infrastructure and were tactically being left behind, nowadays the league is more like the Premier League in terms of goals and attacking football, but that's coincided with a lot overseas players and managers coming in, probably at the expense of Italian players and the Italian National team, 3 World Cups in a row they have failed to qualify for. It's actually a miracle we're still producing some high quality English players given how few English players there actually is playing top level football, Italy have nobody near the quality of a Rice, Kane or Bellingham. Must have been the old skool defensive coaching at academy level that stunted their growth as the modern day, high pressing game came to the fore.

In the first place Man City are not cheats.
Some leaked information has slipped into the media implying that the 'independent commission' has upheld the charges against them by the EPL.
There is an appeals process.
Then a sanction process.
Until then City, as has been the history in this country in all legal cases since time immemorial (ie King Richard the Lionheart's reign for the unitiated), are innocent until proven guilty.

If the end result does go against them then I should expect City to take this matter to a higher court of law.
Especially if the EPL appears to be alleging in over 50 charges that City are guilty of 'inaccurate accounting'. Which could attract HMRC.
City would be well within their rights to attempt to clear their name.

Parma and Fiorentina were already going through financial collapses before that scandal as an example, Italian clubs were just badly run in general, had poor outdated infrastructure and were tactically being left behind, nowadays the league is more like the Premier League in terms of goals and attacking football, but that's coincided with a lot overseas players and managers coming in, probably at the expense of Italian players and the Italian National team, 3 World Cups in a row they have failed to qualify for. It's actually a miracle we're still producing some high quality English players given how few English players there actually is playing top level football, Italy have nobody near the quality of a Rice, Kane or Bellingham. Must have been the old skool defensive coaching at academy level that stunted their growth as the modern day, high pressing game came to the fore.

They are cheats, that's what thread is about.

They cheated to inflate their spending

Not once or twice but systematically over
years and left evidence of 114 occasions

Heaven knows how many more times they've cheated.

Now they are caught and wriggling

Declan Rice? Declan bl33ding Rice? Part of the 12% midfield that folded so cravenly to those lovabe Argies? The man who uses his Ingerlund celebrity to avoid a deserved red card v Brighton (humbled by Mourinho's Roma in the europa league a few years back by the way) and then weasles his way out of international duty... Do me a favour.

The cautionary tale of Serie A is of a financial bubble that did explode. Something that the EPL may want to take notice of particularly if they are hellbent on destroying the biggest name in their League.

And lets not forget what the Italians did in wembley 2021. My mind is a little hazy. Was that a 6th or 7th major international title?

Survived when cheating Citeh were in div 3

Easily survive without them again.

When City were in the third tier, the EPL was a one team league. Run for the benefit of Fergus and Man Utd. And way behind Serie A in most metrics. If thats what you want.

And btw, Innocent until proven guilty.

An outlier, they scrapped past Austria on in extra time, scrapped past a clapped out Belgium and Spain and England on penalties.

Rice was half fit at the World Cup but is generally indispensable for club and country.

But this is about City's cheating, if they had no made illegal payments to managers and players they would not have had the same success they had would they, I don't know why you are dressing this up, they have been caught bang to rights, the Premier League and it's lawyers would not have produced these factual findings are several years if they did not think it was any thing but concrete, watertight proof of their wrong doing, any subsequent appeal would just be doing what they've been doing all along, kicking the can down the road. They've never even had the decency to admit to a single charge, do you think they are innocent of all 114 then ?

They are simply a state run football club who's owners are not used to having to abide by law and being told what they can and can't do, what they can and can't spend, well now they have and they will pay the consequences of their illegal actions i.e. mass-scale financial doping that has changed the course of English football history.

Kind Regards.

Ingerlund scraped past the Congo.
But thats cup football..

All I know, and all you know for that matter Mes, is what is getting fed to us by the media. No statements from the EPL and nothing apart from a 'Je ne regrette rien' from Kaldoon..

All I am doing is inferring what is in the public domain. ESPNfc, an American broadcaster btw, has provided the only detailed info and they say that there are over 50 charges upheld by the 'independent commission' to do with 'accounting inaccuracies'.
That to me has to be the heart of the matter.

The rest, employee contracts, compliance, FFP transgressions are not going to be that big. I am saying this because the biggest info we have about this is Bobby Mancini and his coaching in the Arabian peninsular.  If KdB had been paid by Sheikh Mansour's wife or whatever then I think that would have come out. When it went wrong for Rangers we heard that HMRC were on them for paying players wages from an overseas trust for their picture rights. We knew pretty early on where the problem was for the Gers.
I could be wrong but I am commenting on what is out there.

So back to the 'acccounting inaccuracies'.
Like i said. There surely can be nothing illegal with the TV money as the EPL dole that out. So that leaves us with the Global partnerships. From where CIty fell foul before.
I believe it is logical to assume the issue is going to be 'fair market value' for the commercial revenues.
As it was before with the stadium rights
When the EPL are brandishing around terms such as 'innacurate accounting reporting' then that is potentially criminal activity which will attract the UK government.
I do not honestly believe that HMRC will care if Abu Dhabi tourism, Etihad, BeIn sport or whomever have paid over the odds. City will take it to a court of law, prove no wrong doing and will be exonerated. But thats just my take.

no wonder POOCH got sacked at SPURS,PSG,CHELSEA if he thinks

WILL I ARNT, was the difference between winning and losing the title to chelsea

That is a good point.

how many underachieving, overpaid, entitled bit-part players from an industry chock-full of underachieving, overpaid, entitled egos are going to come forward demanding some sort of 'reparation' payment from City?
Its going to look like the Versailles treaty at the end of World War I. When every two-bit nation tried to exact their pound of flesh out of the Germans.
And look where that ended up...

I mean, I follow the not-so-mighty Spurs and the notion we deserve an EPL title cos Roman paid a few agents a bit of bunce, well its risible.

For nothing else I call on all this Man City hate to cease. Less you want to see the EPL trophy for 2016-17 sitting in the hitherto dust-ridden Tottenham trophy cabinet...

given a fair wind spursey could mould alfie  haaland in to luther missit within 3 months

Plenty of chat about sanctions, relegations, expulsion, points and fines. If the verdict is published and upheld, what should happen is that  these owners be declare unfit and not "right and proper". Nothing to do with state ownership, just these particular people who will have demonstrated that they are happy to flout the rules. Of course it won't happen, the business as it stands could not be sold, other than to a proxy, but imagine if this lot were making a takeover bid now, knowing what we know.

Another valid point..

It will have to go down as one of the great modern wonders of the world...
How does a club which employed Luka Modric, Gareth Bale & Harry Kane... for much of this century... and for quite a few seasons haviing TWO of said gentlemen in the SAME side... fail to win a league, an FA CUP or a European trophy?

There are 92 professional clubs in english football and a good proportion of them I fancy might have done better. Maybe as many as half of them