Somewhere in central London on a Thursday afternoon, behind the smoked-glass discretion of a Premier League shareholders’ meeting, club executives learned the number. They then signed non-disclosure agreements — the little fiduciary gags by which English football keeps its most explosive secrets — and by Friday lunchtime the secret was out anyway, splashed by David Ornstein of The Athletic and confirmed in short order by the Times, the Guardian, CNN and half the newsrooms of the English-speaking world: Manchester City, the sky-blue machine built on Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth, found guilty of 114 of the 115 charges of breaching the Premier League’s financial rules. All but one!

The club that has won eight of the last available league titles, that lifted its first Champions League in 2023, that has Erling Haaland bulldozing defences like a Viking in a swimming pool — guilty, according to the reports, on a charge sheet without precedent in the history of the sport. No sanctions have been decided. An appeal is expected imminently. And so begins what you might call the Great Paper Siege of English football: lawyers at ten paces, forever.

Count the charges — if you can

Here the arithmetic gets gloriously murky, and honesty demands the fog be preserved. Most outlets — The Athletic, the Times, CNN, Al Jazeera — report 115 charges, of which 80 cover alleged breaches of regulations from 2009 to 2018 and 35 concern failing to cooperate with the league’s investigation. The Guardian, however, counts 134 charges spanning the seasons 2009-10 to 2022-23, with more than 80 relating to the obligation to act in ‘the utmost good faith’ when disclosing information to the league, and 20 concerning the duty to provide ‘full details of … remuneration’ on player and manager payments. Both tallies cannot be right, and nobody inside the process — bound by ‘strict confidentiality’ — is saying which is. What is clear is the shape of the accusation: that across more than a decade, from 2009-10 to 2017-18 at minimum, City failed to provide accurate financial information giving a ‘true and fair view’ of revenues, sponsorship income and costs; breached UEFA’s financial fair play rules between 2013-14 and 2017-18; and flouted Premier League profit and sustainability rules between 2015-16 and 2017-18.

The whole saga grew out of stolen paper. In 2018 the German magazine Der Spiegel published leaked emails purportedly sent between top City executives — documents suggesting sponsorship revenue from the UAE state-controlled airline Etihad and the telecoms firm Etisalat had been inflated by disguising direct investment from Sheikh Mansour’s Abu Dhabi United Group as income, plus claims of off-the-books payments to then-manager Roberto Mancini via consultancy fees from a club in Abu Dhabi. Mansour, a member of the United Arab Emirates royal family, bought City in 2008 and transformed them from also-rans into the league’s dominant force: eight of the club’s 10 league titles have come in the past 15 seasons, per Al Jazeera, alongside that solitary Champions League crown. From 2009-10 to 2022-23, the Guardian totes up seven Premier League titles, a Champions League, three FA Cups and six League Cups.

Been here, won this

City, it must be said, have stood in this dock before and walked out whistling. UEFA found them in breach of FFP in 2014 — a €20m fine. In 2020 came a two-year Champions League ban for overstating sponsorship revenue, which the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned, finding most alleged breaches either not established or ‘time-barred’ outside a five-year statutory limit; the accompanying $34 million fine was cut to $11.3 million, with CAS ruling City had failed to cooperate with UEFA. The Premier League’s rulebook contains no such time-bar clause. The club have always insisted a ‘comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence’ proves their innocence, and they hired David Pannick to lead the defence against the Premier League’s Adam Lewis KC, in a hearing that opened on 16 September 2024 and ran until 6 December before a three-person independent commission.

The city’s political class weighed in promptly. Andy Burnham — billed by the Guardian, curiously, as ‘prime minister’ — told ITV Granada Reports: “People shouldn’t jump to those kind of conclusions… I think we would all need to study the independent commission’s report in some considerable detail before reaching any conclusions.”

The vultures did the maths first

While the rest of football gasped, four clubs reached for their files. Sources told the Independent that Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur preserved their right to claim compensation for loss of earnings under Section W of the competition rules before the statute of limitations passed — Arsenal first, with Spurs, Liverpool and United following. Successful legal actions could be worth more than £200m in total to claimant clubs, sources with knowledge of the details say; lawyers could argue losses well beyond the seasons in question, including ‘loss of chance’ and lost commercial deals — United, for instance, missed out on the 2011-12 and 2017-18 titles, Liverpool on 2013-14. The precedent gleams like a freshly minted coin: in June, an independent commission ordered Everton to pay Burnley £35.1m after their 2021-22 breach of Profitability and Sustainability Rules was found to have conferred sporting advantage — Everton staying up in 16th on 39 points, Burnley relegated in 18th on 35. Any claims can only proceed once the entire case, appeals included, is concluded.

And the punishments theoretically on the table are operatic. Under rule W.64, as the Guardian notes, the panel can fine, suspend, deduct points or — the nuclear option — expel a club from competition altogether. The rulebook allows 14 days to lodge an appeal by email; the appeal hearing should conclude within 12 weeks, with written reasons published within 30 days after that. For scale: Everton lost eight points over the 2023-24 season for two PSR breaches, Nottingham Forest four points for one in March 2024 — and Chelsea, found to have breached FA rules on agents 74 times under Roman Abramovich, escaped with a £10m fine, having self-reported and gained no significant sporting advantage, neither factor appearing to apply in City’s case.

‘Nothing has changed’

The club’s public face remains granite. A spokesperson reiterated Friday that “the Premier League process remains ongoing… subject to strict confidentiality” and that City has “diligently respected due process for eight years” on the basis the league would act as “an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator.” Then on Saturday came chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak’s open letter to supporters — itself, he noted, subjected to “several legal checks to make sure it complies.” “Here’s what I said to my family,” the chairman wrote: “The Premier League process still has a long way to run and our confidence and intent in proving the club’s innocence is just as strong as when this began.” “Nothing has changed,” he insisted. “There remain many who want to undermine the momentum of our club. We will not give them that opportunity.”

Momentum, indeed: on the pitch, where none of this apparently reaches, City sit top of the Premier League after winning each of their opening five matches — a club simultaneously at the summit of English football and, if the reports hold, guilty of the largest catalogue of rule-breaking in its history. The appeal clock is ticking; the compensation lawyers are circling; the sentence is unwritten. The earlier chapter of this saga, and every indication of the one to come, is here.