Manchester City\u2019s rise from Premier League underachievers to one of the most dominant forces in world soccer and champions of Europe has been accompanied by a long-running regulatory dispute. After a four-year inquiry, the Premier League brought formal charges in February 2023 alleging 115 breaches of its financial rules, a figure reported in some accounts as high as 134 depending on categorization.<\/p>\n
At issue is the Premier League\u2019s claim that the club breached Profit and Sustainability Rules by disguising owner funding as sponsorship revenue and failing to disclose certain payments to players and managers. The alleged breaches relate to activity between 2009 and 2018, a spell in which City won three Premier League titles.<\/p>\n
A private, in-person hearing before an independent three-member commission opened on Sep. 16, 2024, and closed on Dec. 6 after nearly three months of evidence and submissions. The panel has been deliberating since and so far there has been no published outcome. The Premier League has declined to comment, while City say there is a “comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence” supporting their position.<\/p>\n
Observers point to the complexity and volume of material under review and to the part-time nature of the commissioners as possible reasons for delay. The Premier League operates without a strict deadline for resolving historic cases, which allows it to pursue alleged breaches dating back to 2009. Pep Guardiola said in February 2025 that a decision could arrive within “one month,” but no ruling followed.<\/p>\n
Premier League chief Richard Masters said at the Financial Times Business of Football Summit in London in February 2026, per BBC Sport: “I simply can\u2019t comment. Having spent three years not commenting, I\u2019m not going to start now. More broadly, any regulator wants its judicial system to be efficient and work quickly\u2014that\u2019s as far as I can go.”<\/p>\n
If guilt is found, sanctions under the rules range from fines to points deductions or, in the most extreme cases, expulsion. Recent, smaller-scale examples include two- and four-point deductions for Everton and Nottingham Forest. Soccer finance expert Kieran Maguire suggested a much larger penalty could follow if the most serious allegations are proven: “The Premier League cannot relegate Manchester City to League One or League Two because that is an EFL decision,” Maguire said on The Overlap. “Therefore, it has to be a points deduction.” He added: “The numbers involved are likely to be significant. If you look at previous cases, you\u2019d probably have to add a zero\u2014so somewhere between a 40- and 60-point deduction would be consistent.” Once a verdict is issued, both parties have 14 days to lodge an appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summary of the Premier League’s charges, hearing progress and possible sanctions against City. 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,969],"tags":[1505,1038],"class_list":["post-12119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","category-premier-league","tag-accountability","tag-accounts-2024-25"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}