This Isn’t Just a Story About a Billionaire Buying Trophies

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For many Americans, the education in English soccer did not begin with Manchester United, Liverpool or a childhood spent following the Premier League. It began with Ted Lasso. The Apple TV comedy became a genuine American cultural phenomenon; in 2023 alone, Nielsen measured 16.9 billion minutes of U.S. viewing, making it the most-watched original streaming series in the country that year.¹ Through the fictional AFC Richmond, millions of Americans learned the peculiar architecture of English football: promotion and relegation, club ownership, rabid local supporters, the transfer market and the almost feudal relationship between wealthy owners and the institutions they control.

And perhaps no Ted Lasso scene is more useful for understanding the Manchester City story than Ted’s darts match against Rebecca Welton’s insufferably confident ex-husband, Rupert Mannion, the wealthy English club owner seemingly pulled straight from central casting. Rupert’s overconfidence is born of his own insecurity about being born poor, and it leads him to assume the relentlessly cheerful American knows nothing about darts. Ted lets him assume he’s the easy mark. Then, right before beating him, Ted tells the story of the weekly trips he took as a boy with his father to the local pub, where he became an expert at the game, and recalls a quotation he once saw attributed to Walt Whitman: “Be curious, not judgmental.” As it happens, Whitman almost certainly never said it.² But Ted’s advice was good nonetheless.

It may also be the right way to approach Manchester City. For years, the easiest judgment was obvious: Sheikh Mansour was simply another fantastically wealthy man who had purchased one of the world’s most expensive toys. He bought Manchester City, poured extraordinary sums of money into it, acquired some of the finest players on Earth and collected trophies. But curiosity requires a different question. Why?

Because if the Premier League commission’s findings ultimately survive appeal, the more interesting story may not be that a billionaire spent enormous sums bending football’s financial rules in pursuit of championships. It may be that those financial arrangements helped transform an asset worth only a few hundred million dollars into a global sports empire now valued at approximately $5.5 billion. In other words, perhaps this was never merely about buying trophies. Perhaps the trophies were helping build the asset.

On September 29, 2026, the Premier League published the decision of an independent commission that found Manchester City guilty of serious financial-rule violations extending across nine seasons, from 2009-10 through 2017-18.³ According to the commission, City used “sham” commercial arrangements to artificially inflate its revenue and reduce its reported costs, misstated its accounts, concealed the true state of its finances from auditors and football regulators, breached spending limits “by a very substantial amount” in every season examined, and then made “concerted efforts to stop and frustrate” the league’s investigation. Of the charges brought, every one was proven except a single count of non-cooperation.⁴

City called itself “disappointed and surprised,” insisted it was “innocent of the accusations,” and on October 1 lodged an appeal alleging “clear material errors, of law, principle and fact.” Its chief executive, Ferran Soriano, told staff the verdict endorsed “the Premier League’s conspiracy theory.”⁵ Sanctions will be determined at a separate, private hearing that has not yet been scheduled.

One of the bluntest reactions came from Roy Keane, the former Manchester United captain: “If I was a player, I’d be 100% sticking those medals in the bin.”⁶

For American readers, the temptation will be to see this primarily as a sports scandal, and that may miss the biggest story. Manchester City was not simply transformed from a mediocre soccer club into one of the most successful teams on Earth; it was transformed into a $5.5 billion asset, and the man who controlled the club when the disputed financial arrangements began is still the man who controls it today. That raises a much larger question: if financial arrangements that violated the rules helped create the competitive machine that turned Manchester City into a global powerhouse, how much of the club’s multibillion-dollar increase in value flowed from that transformation? That question may ultimately be more consequential than whether a trophy gets taken out of a display case.

This is Part 1 of the Sports Accounting Scandal Series. Part 2, The American Owners and the Price of Financial Deception, looks at Steve Ballmer and the Clippers, the owners who lost their franchises, and what an American securities lawyer would make of the same accounting practices. Here, the question begins with Manchester City: what happened, what punishment could follow, and how a financial advantage can become a multibillion-dollar asset.

Some History

Manchester was a powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution, a city built on cotton mills, engineering and the labor that helped make Britain the workshop of the world. Football became part of its civic identity, with loyalties passed through families and argued over across generations. Manchester’s two clubs play a mere five miles apart and both grew out of that industrial community: United began as a railway workers’ team in 1878; City traces its origins to a church team formed in working-class West Gorton in 1880. United became the more celebrated international institution, while City cultivated the identity of the stubborn local rival, enduring disappointment in its neighbor’s shadow. A New Yorker might recognize something of the Yankees and the old Dodgers and Giants. But the analogy has limits.

United’s “Theatre of Dreams” now draws a massive global following alongside a traditional, working-class local fan base. City, by contrast, historically commanded a fiercely loyal, intensely local following that moved with the club from Maine Road to the modern Etihad Stadium in 2003. City fans once prided themselves on being the “true” locals sticking by an underdog. The 2008 Abu Dhabi-backed takeover transformed the club into a sleek, dominant athletic empire and exploded its international popularity. Today both clubs boast enormous global audiences, but the cultural rift persists: United is the traditional commercial behemoth built on decades of legacy; City embodies the cutting edge of modern, data-driven football supremacy.

The Transformation

Sheikh Mansour acquired Manchester City through Abu Dhabi United Group in September 2008, reportedly for approximately £210 million. He remains the ultimate majority owner today, through City Football Group and his wholly owned Newton Investment and Development; the American investment firm Silver Lake holds a substantial minority stake. When Forbes valued Manchester City using its 2009-10 results, it placed the club’s value at just $291 million, and noted that Sheikh Mansour had already poured an estimated $480 million of his personal wealth into the club, much of it to improve the roster.⁷

Now look at Manchester City. In May 2026, Forbes valued the club at $5.5 billion on annual revenue of roughly $900 million, making it the seventh-most valuable soccer club in the world.⁸ From $291 million to $5.5 billion is an increase of more than $5.2 billion in estimated enterprise value, approximately nineteen times the 2010 figure, and that is where this story becomes considerably more interesting than the familiar tale of a rich man and his shiny new toy.

The Economics of Soccer

European soccer has no NFL-style hard salary cap. Historically, a wealthy owner could pour enormous sums into players and salaries. The sport eventually tried to restrain that arms race through rules commonly known as Financial Fair Play; UEFA introduced its version in 2011, and the Premier League followed with its own Profitability and Sustainability Rules. The underlying concept is simple: a club should largely spend money generated by the football business itself, rather than disguising unlimited injections of an owner’s personal fortune as ordinary business revenue. Revenue matters because, under these rules, revenue is what creates spending capacity.

Consider a team that legitimately earns $500 million a year from television, tickets, merchandise and sponsorship; the financial rules may allow it to sustain enormous player costs. Now suppose the team actually generates only $400 million, and its billionaire owner wants another $100 million available for players. He generally cannot simply relabel a $100 million check from himself as operating revenue. But imagine that a company associated with him signs a purported $100 million sponsorship agreement with the club, and that in reality the sponsor contributes only $20 million while the owner quietly supplies the remaining $80 million behind the arrangement. On paper, the club has generated another $100 million commercially. In economic reality, it has received $20 million of sponsorship and $80 million of owner funding dressed up to look like something else. That distinction goes to the heart of the Manchester City case, and the commission even gave the two pieces names: the “Base Sum,” which the sponsor actually paid, and the “Tagged Sum,” which the owner’s investment vehicle paid on the sponsor’s behalf.⁹

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What the Commission Found

The commission determined that Manchester City entered into “sham” contracts with commercial partners between 2009-10 and 2017-18 in arrangements that misrepresented what was actually happening. In the words of the published decision, “Each of the AD Sponsorship Agreements was a sham.”¹⁰

The scheme, the commission found, was devised in early 2010 after City missed its 2009 revenue budget, and its purpose was to “disguise shareholder funding.” Sponsors signed deals “well above” fair market value and paid only a fraction; Abu Dhabi United Group paid the rest, and the club booked the full amount as commercial revenue. In the 2009-10 season alone, the arrangement allowed City to “avoid breaking the record for the largest single season loss” in English football.

The numbers are stark. Over the nine seasons, City recorded approximately £949.9 million of revenue through the relevant sponsorship arrangements. The commission concluded that approximately £830.7 million of that money, about 87 percent, actually came from Abu Dhabi United Group, the investment vehicle of Sheikh Mansour, rather than from the sponsors as represented. By 2017-18 the owner-funded share had reached 92.5 percent. Adding a separate image-rights vehicle and off-book payments to a manager and players, the Premier League puts the combined effect at more than £900 million of inflated revenue and reduced costs.¹¹

The commission also found that regulators “and even the Club’s auditors” were unaware of the arrangement; that a £9.9 million shortfall against UEFA’s rules in May 2013 was “plugged” within days without the sponsors even being approached; and that the club’s later explanation, that the Abu Dhabi government’s Crown Prince Court rather than the owner had covered the payments, was “an ‘explanation’ that the Club had concocted well after the event.”

Most damaging for the appeal, the commission concluded that evidence from “a number of important factual witnesses” called by the club was “false in a number of key respects,” and that certain witnesses “had given evidence at the hearing that they knew to be untrue and so had been dishonest.” The witnesses’ names are redacted.

It is important to describe the finding precisely. The commission found that these were sham arrangements that violated Premier League financial rules. That does not, by itself, mean that a criminal court has declared the contracts “illegal,” nor has Sheikh Mansour personally been indicted or convicted of a crime. The decision records that there was “no direct evidence” that one unnamed senior individual knew of or authorized the scheme. The sponsors are not named in the redacted text, though Etihad Airways has said it “categorically rejects” any implication of impropriety and is taking legal advice.¹²

Manchester City strongly rejects the commission’s conclusions and is appealing. But if the decision survives, this is not an accounting technicality; it means the financial picture regulators were shown was materially different from the underlying economic reality, and different by almost £1 billion.

How Does This Help You Win Soccer Games?

This is where Americans unfamiliar with European soccer may get lost. Nobody is accused of paying referees or fixing games. Nobody is saying Sergio Agüero’s famous championship-winning goal in 2012 somehow did not cross the line. The advantage was more fundamental than any of that, because in elite European soccer money buys players, and acquiring and retaining the world’s best players is enormously expensive. Every pound of recognized revenue permits another pound of spending, and that spending buys larger transfer fees, larger salaries and deeper rosters, so that the injuries that cripple other teams become manageable. It also buys elite managers, coaches, analysts and executives.

Success then creates more success. A club that wins the Premier League becomes more attractive to players; a club that qualifies for the Champions League receives tens of millions in additional revenue; a club that wins championships watches its international fan base grow, and those fans attract sponsors, whose money produces more legitimate revenue, which supports still more spending. The cycle feeds itself, and Manchester City executed it spectacularly. In the eyes of many, this kind of investment and growth would seem as American as apple pie.

A Billionaire’s Toy, or a Billionaire’s Investment?

The conventional narrative surrounding wealthy sports owners assumes they are consuming wealth. They buy expensive teams because they enjoy them. They overpay for players. They chase championships. If they lose a few hundred million dollars along the way, that is simply the price of owning the ultimate luxury asset. But what if the spending does something else? What if enormous early investment, facilitated in part by financial arrangements later found to violate the sport’s rules, helps transform a relatively modest sporting asset into one of the world’s dominant sports brands? Now the economics look very different, because the owner has not merely spent money. He has created equity, and potentially billions of dollars of it.

The remarkable part of the Manchester City story is not simply that Sheikh Mansour’s money helped buy great players. It is that the club those players transformed has appreciated from a few hundred million dollars to approximately $5.5 billion. The sporting success and the financial success cannot easily be separated. Winning created global recognition, recognition produced supporters, and supporters produced broadcasting audiences, merchandise sales and sponsorship value, while Champions League success expanded the brand internationally. Manchester City went from living in the shadow of Manchester United to becoming one of the most recognizable sporting organizations in the world, and that transformation has enormous economic value.

The Compounding Effect

Imagine an owner improperly obtains an extra $100 million of spending room in Year One. The benefit is not limited to $100 million. Suppose that money buys three great players who carry the club into the Champions League, which brings tens of millions in new, legitimate revenue, and then to a domestic title. Fans follow, television audiences grow, sponsors pay more and better players want to join, so the club wins again and the brand becomes global.

Ten years later, determining which dollars resulted from the original financial advantage becomes nearly impossible. That is the concept of compounding competitive advantage, and it presents a far more complicated problem than calculating how much Manchester City overspent in a particular season. The commission’s findings cover seasons in which City won the Premier League in 2011-12, 2013-14 and 2017-18, the FA Cup in 2010-11 and three League Cups. The first league title may be the most famous finish in English soccer history: City and United entered the final moments of the 2011-12 season fighting for the championship, and Sergio Agüero scored in stoppage time to produce a 3-2 victory and the club’s first English league championship in 44 years. The goal is part of soccer mythology. But the business consequences of that moment were enormous too. Manchester City was no longer merely an ambitious project. It was a champion.

Then Came the Leaks

The case might never have reached this point without the internal documents exposed through Football Leaks. A Portuguese hacker, Rui Pinto, gained access to Manchester City’s emails through a phishing attack in January 2017. In November 2018, Der Spiegel began publishing reports based on leaked club correspondence and financial records, and the disclosures raised the question that would drive eight years of litigation: was money presented as commercial sponsorship revenue actually being supplied by City’s ownership?¹³

One widely reported example concerned Etihad’s sponsorship for 2015-16. An internal email appeared to allocate only £8 million of the £67.5 million sponsorship to the airline, with the remaining £59.5 million attributed to Abu Dhabi United Group. Etihad denied the characterization then, and denies it now. City dismissed the reports as based on “out of context materials purportedly hacked or stolen.”¹⁴

What followed was nearly eight years of investigations, hearings and appeals.¹⁵ The Premier League began investigating in December 2018. UEFA moved faster: in February 2020 its financial control body found that City had overstated sponsorship revenue, fined the club €30 million and banned it from European competition for two seasons, only for the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn the ban five months later because most of the alleged breaches were “either not established or time-barred” under UEFA’s five-year limitation period. City treated the ruling as vindication. The Premier League’s rules contain no limitation period, and its investigation ground on; in July 2021 an English appellate judge observed that after two and a half years “so little progress has been made.”¹⁶

On February 6, 2023, the league referred the case to an independent commission. The allegations became known as the “115 charges”: 54 concerning financial information, 14 involving manager and player pay, five concerning UEFA compliance, seven involving Premier League spending rules and 35 alleging failure to cooperate.¹⁷ A confidential hearing ran from September 16 to December 6, 2024, occupying 42 hearing days, 27 factual witnesses and roughly 7,000 pages of transcript, with City’s defense led by Lord Pannick KC.¹⁸ Twenty-one months later, on September 29, 2026, the Premier League published the redacted, 40-page Core Decision; the commission itself called the delay “regrettable.” City lodged its appeal on October 1, one day before the deadline.

One clarification on the arithmetic: the decision does not use the number 115. It groups the allegations into four charges with sub-parts and finds every one proven “bar Charge 4(B),” a single non-cooperation limb. “114 of 115” is reporting shorthand, not the commission’s description of its result. The substance is the same: every financial charge was upheld.¹⁹

This Is No Longer Merely an Allegation

That distinction matters. For several years, discussion of Manchester City necessarily revolved around allegations. That changed on September 29, 2026. An independent commission has now made factual findings against the club, applying a standard it described as requiring “strong, cogent evidence” and finding that City breached its obligation of “utmost good faith” to the league.²⁰ City is entitled to appeal those findings, is doing so, and maintains that the decision contains serious legal and factual errors. Until the appeal is completed, it would be premature to treat every disputed issue as finally resolved.

But it is equally inaccurate to describe the matter as nothing more than accusations generated by leaked emails. There is now an adjudicated finding that Manchester City engaged in serious and prolonged financial-rule violations. And the reaction inside English football has been unusually blunt. Gary Neville called the verdict “chilling” and City’s talk of “irrefutable evidence” of its innocence “Trump-esque.” Jamie Carragher wrote that the owners must sell. Tony Pulis, who managed against those City teams, said simply: “I still feel cheated.” The Football Association said the decision “has significant implications for the integrity of the game.”²¹

What Punishment Manchester City Faces

Nothing has been imposed yet. The September 29 decision is a liability ruling only; everything after its final paragraph is redacted. Sanctions will be decided at a separate, private hearing before the same three-member commission, with the league proposing a penalty and either side free to appeal. No date has been set. The league’s chief executive, Richard Masters, says it is “committed to moving swiftly,” and the league reportedly wants the sanctions hearing to run alongside City’s appeal rather than wait for it.²²

The menu of penalties is wide. Under the Premier League’s rules a commission has “broad discretion”: an unlimited fine, an order to pay compensation, a points deduction of any size, and “such other order as it thinks fit,” which can include a recommendation of expulsion. Expulsion itself requires a vote of the 20 clubs, with 15 in favor, and an expelled club would have to apply to the English Football League and start again in the fourth tier.²³

The recent precedents set the scale, and none of them helps City. Everton was docked a total of eight points over two seasons for overspending. Nottingham Forest lost four points despite “exceptional cooperation.” Chelsea, whose new owners self-reported £47.5 million of undisclosed Abramovich-era payments, escaped a points deduction entirely this year because of that cooperation. Manchester City has none of that mitigation: its breaches run nine seasons, the commission found them intentional, and it found that the club obstructed the investigation and that some of its witnesses lied.²⁴ Expert predictions range from a 50-to-60-point deduction, which would make relegation nearly certain, to a “severe” but proportionate penalty measured against the Everton and Forest cases. Rival clubs have told Sky Sports they do not expect City to be in the Premier League next season if the appeal fails, though senior executives doubt 15 clubs would vote for expulsion. The Culture Secretary has said expulsion is possible.²⁵

The trophies are a different matter. Within the charge period City won three Premier League titles, an FA Cup and three League Cups. Title-stripping is theoretically open to the commission, but almost no one inside the game expects trophies to change hands. The more likely outcome is an asterisk in the record book, debated forever.

City’s appeal goes to a three-member Appeal Board chaired by a former judge. Under fast-track rules adopted for this season, the hearing would take place within 12 weeks and be decided within 30 days after that, which would put a ruling in the third week of January 2027. City may argue that rules adopted this year cannot apply to a complaint filed in 2023, which could push the matter deep into 2027. The club’s case reportedly rests on bank statements, payment records and correspondence that it says show the sponsorship top-ups came from the Abu Dhabi government, as a shareholder in the sponsors, rather than from Sheikh Mansour’s investment vehicle. That is the explanation the commission rejected as an after-the-fact invention, and the appeal is not a full rehearing. The Appeal Board’s decision is final, subject only to narrow challenge in the English courts; there is no route to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which rescued City in 2020.²⁶

Here the contrast with American sports is sharpest. The Premier League’s process punishes the club, not the people who ran it. No individual is named in the published decision, no executive has been charged, and the league has no mechanism in this case to ban chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, chief executive Ferran Soriano or anyone else. Three other bodies could fill that gap. The new Independent Football Regulator, created by the Football Governance Act 2025, has said the decision “raises serious issues” and that it has power to assess “the suitability of owners, directors and executives,” which it will use “where there is clear evidence of wrongdoing by individuals” once the Premier League process ends; those powers extend to disqualifying individuals and forcing an unsuitable owner to sell. HM Revenue & Customs may have a claim: one tax lawyer estimates that a single off-book compensation arrangement left roughly £11.6 million of tax unpaid, and Parliament’s Treasury Committee has asked HMRC whether it holds an unredacted copy of the decision. And UEFA is monitoring the case, though its five-year limitation period remains the obstacle it was in 2020.²⁷

Then there are the lawsuits. Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham lodged protective legal notices in November 2024 preserving their right to sue City for damages, and Burnley’s £35 million claim against Everton provides the template.²⁸ As for the ownership, Khaldoon Al Mubarak said in June there is “no intention to sell,” and no sale process has been reported. But Carragher says a sale “is the only way to heal,” a UAE scholar told The Athletic he cannot see Sheikh Mansour continuing if the appeal fails, and Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor who is now Britain’s prime minister, drew fire from rival clubs when he said he would be “really concerned to lose” the Abu Dhabi owners. Downing Street later clarified that nobody is “above the rules.”²⁹

Meanwhile, Manchester City sits top of the Premier League after spending roughly £460 million in the summer transfer window. Pep Guardiola’s response to the verdict was three words on Instagram: “I am here.”

Owners Around the World Who Faced the Same Reckoning

Manchester City is not the first club found to have cooked the books that a league relies on, and the sanctions handed down elsewhere form a rough scale against which City’s punishment will be judged. When a major club has been found to have systematically deceived its league about money, it has been relegated or stripped of titles far more often than it has been merely fined. Juventus was relegated and stripped of two titles in 2006 for manipulating referee assignments, and docked 10 points in 2023 for inflating player valuations and hiding salary arrangements; its chairman, Andrea Agnelli, was banned from Italian football and accepted a suspended criminal sentence. Marseille was stripped of its 1993 French title and relegated, and its owner, Bernard Tapie, went to prison. In English rugby, Saracens was docked 105 points and relegated in 2020 after its owner disguised player payments as property co-investments and the club refused a mid-season audit. In Australia, Melbourne Storm was stripped of two championships for keeping two sets of contracts. Rangers, Scotland’s most decorated club, was liquidated and sent to the fourth division after an offshore pay scheme.³⁰

Two further patterns emerge. The executives who ran these schemes have mostly escaped with bans and suspended sentences; only Tapie went to prison for the football itself. And in club soccer, no owner has ever been forced to sell by a league for financial fraud. Divestment has come from governments, as with Roman Abramovich and Chelsea, from bankruptcy courts, or from ownership tests, not from a disciplinary commission.³¹ The Independent Football Regulator’s new power to disqualify owners is the first British mechanism built to change that, and Manchester City may be its first test.

The $5 Billion Question

That brings us back to the part of this story that may receive too little attention. Manchester City can be punished as a football club: it could face substantial financial penalties, points could be deducted, perhaps enough to send it out of the Premier League, its championships will become the subject of fierce debate, and there could be consequences for the people who ran the club, depending upon the regulator, the tax authority and the outcome of the appeal. But trophies are not the only thing Manchester City’s rise created. It also created billions of dollars of enterprise value.

The same ownership that acquired the club in 2008 remains in control of an organization Forbes now values at $5.5 billion. It would be far too simplistic to say that the entire $5-plus billion increase resulted from the financial violations. Many other forces contributed: Premier League television rights exploded in value; global soccer grew; City’s management made intelligent decisions; Pep Guardiola built exceptional teams; extraordinary players performed on the field; and virtually every major sports franchise has appreciated dramatically over the last fifteen years. There is no responsible way, on presently available information, to assign a particular portion of City’s current value to the conduct found by the commission.

But the relationship cannot simply be ignored either. If the financial arrangements allowed City to spend materially more than the rules permitted, and that spending accelerated the club’s transformation into a perennial champion, then the economic consequences did not end when the checks were written. They compounded, as players produced victories, victories produced championships, championships produced fans, fans produced revenue, revenue produced brand value and brand value produced enterprise value, until an asset worth hundreds of millions became an asset worth billions.

Part 2 of this series examines the American cases that make this point in reverse: leagues can suspend owners, strip draft picks or bring about a sale without ever recovering the accumulated appreciation of the underlying franchise. Those cases offer a warning for the Premier League. But Manchester City’s reckoning must begin with its own findings, its own rules and the outcome of its appeal.

That is why the Manchester City scandal should not be understood merely as another story about the excesses of a billionaire sports owner. The much more provocative question is whether rule-breaking financial arrangements helped create a sporting dynasty, and whether that dynasty, in turn, helped generate a multibillion-dollar windfall for the very ownership that financed it. The Premier League may eventually decide what happens to Manchester City’s points, trophies and standing in English soccer. The considerably harder question may be this: what happens when violating the rules isn’t merely a cost of winning, but becomes part of the creation of billions of dollars in wealth?

Postscript: Where Things Stand

As this article went to press on October 22, 2026, the procedural picture had sharpened without any new revelation about the underlying scheme. The Premier League is pressing to have City’s punishment decided before the appeal is heard, and the same three-member commission that sat through the 42-day hearing will preside over the sanctions phase. City’s lawyers are expected to ask for a stay of any severe sanction pending appeal, and sports lawyer Dan Chapman, who follows these cases closely, thinks they will get one: “How could you relegate or even expel a team from the league only for an appeal to overturn it months later? It would be chaos on a level never seen before.” Stefan Borson has said the same thing from the other direction, arguing that the liability appeal should be heard before any sanction and that a quick resolution is “very unlikely.” The practical consequence is that the appeal should conclude by mid-December but a sanction is unlikely before early 2027, and if City lose at every stage inside football’s own system, the club is expected to carry the fight into the High Court. Meanwhile David Kogan, chair of the new Independent Football Regulator, told The Rest Is Football podcast that once the appeal is over the regulator will decide whether to “mount our own investigation” into the people who ran the club, and that if it finds a club was not run with “propriety,” it has the power to order an owner to step away. Asked whether an owner could refuse to sell, he said: “No, no, no. We’ve got absolute power to do so.”³²

Continue with Sports Accounting Scandal Series Part 2, The American Owners and the Price of Financial Deception, for the Clippers, the American ownership cases and the Rule 10b-5 discussion.

End Notes

1. Nielsen’s 2023 streaming rankings placed Ted Lasso first among original series with 16.9 billion minutes viewed; Suits, an acquired series, topped the overall list. See AppleInsider, January 29, 2024 and TVLine’s summary of the Nielsen rankings.

2. The line appears in Ted Lasso, Season 1, Episode 8 (“The Diamond Dogs”). No such line appears in Whitman’s published work; the phrase circulated as an unattributed aphorism long before the show adopted it.

3. Premier League Statement: Manchester City FC, September 29, 2026; Independent Commission, Redacted Core Decision (PDF). The commission is an independent, three-member disciplinary tribunal appointed by the chair of the league’s Judicial Panel. The league presents its charges; the club contests them, submits evidence and questions witnesses; and the decision is subject to review by an independent Appeal Board. Bird & Bird represented the Premier League and Clifford Chance represented Manchester City.

4. Core Decision, paras. 7, 109, 114, 149-154, 157. The quoted phrases “by a very substantial amount” (paras. 149(b), 153(b)) and “concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the PL investigation” (para. 157) are the commission’s own.

5. Manchester City Club Statement, September 29, 2026; Manchester City lodge appeal, October 1, 2026; Will Unwin, “Manchester City CEO Soriano says guilty verdicts are ‘a Premier League conspiracy theory,’” The Guardian, September 29, 2026.

6. Keane spoke on ITV Sport on September 29, 2026. Flo Clifford, “Roy Keane says ‘I’d stick medals in the bin’ after Manchester City charges verdict,” The Independent, September 30, 2026.

7. Forbes’ 2010 ranking of the world’s most valuable soccer teams, based on 2009-10 results, valued Manchester City at $291 million. The $480 million figure for Sheikh Mansour’s investment to that point is Forbes’ estimate in the same report.

8. Forbes’ 2026 list of the world’s most valuable soccer clubs, as summarized by Sports Illustrated, May 29, 2026: Real Madrid $9.5 billion (first), Manchester United $7.2 billion (third), Manchester City $5.5 billion (seventh). Revenue figures reflect the 2024-25 season.

9. Core Decision, paras. 67-72. The commission’s terms are “Base Sum” (the amount the sponsor paid) and “Tagged Sum” (the balance funded by Abu Dhabi United Group). A paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of the decision is at The Esk, September 29, 2026.

10. Core Decision, para. 110 (“Each of the AD Sponsorship Agreements was a sham”); paras. 67-80 (origins and purpose of the “Disguised Funding Scheme”); para. 79 (the 2009-10 loss).

11. Core Decision, para. 72 and n. 8 (£949.94 million recorded; £119.25 million paid by sponsors; £830.69 million paid by ADUG; 92.5 percent in 2017-18); para. 101(a)(i) (income overstated by “over £830 million”); paras. 85-87 and 136-141 (the Fordham image-rights vehicle, income overstated £24.5 million and expenses understated £49.4 million); paras. 92-98 and 116-135 (the three remuneration arrangements). The “more than £900 million” figure is the Premier League’s summary in its September 29 statement.

12. Core Decision, n. 7 (auditors and regulators unaware); paras. 88-89 (the May 2013 shortfall); para. 77 (the Crown Prince Court explanation “concocted well after the event”); para. 29 (witness evidence “false in a number of key respects” and witnesses who “had been dishonest”); para. 70 (“no direct evidence” as to one senior individual). On Etihad: Lori Ewing, “Etihad to seek legal advice after Premier League’s Man City findings,” Reuters, September 30, 2026.

13. Grey Whitebloom, “Explaining Man City Whistleblower’s Stunning Attack on FIFA President Gianni Infantino,” Sports Illustrated, October 2, 2026 (Pinto’s January 2017 phishing attack); PA Sport, “Manchester City respond to FFP claims in Der Spiegel,” Sky Sports, November 6, 2018.

14. “‘Web of Lies’: Leaked Emails Reveal How Man City ‘Manipulated’ Sponsor Contracts to Cheat FFP Rules,” Sports Illustrated, November 5, 2018. The figures describe what the leaked correspondence appeared to show, not an undisputed account of the money’s source. City’s “out of context materials” statement and Etihad’s denial are in the Sky Sports report cited in note 13.

15. A full timeline of the case is in Niall McVeigh, “Manchester City timeline: trophies, transfers and more than 100 charges,” The Guardian, September 25, 2026 (updated September 29), and at Insider Sport, September 28, 2026.

16. UEFA, “Investigatory Chamber opens investigation into Manchester City,” March 7, 2019; UEFA, “Club Financial Control Body Adjudicatory Chamber decision on Manchester City Football Club,” February 14, 2020; CAS Media Release, July 13, 2020 (PDF); UEFA statement on CAS Manchester City decision, July 13, 2020. The “so little progress” remark is Lord Justice Males in Manchester City Football Club Ltd v. Football Association Premier League Ltd, [2021] EWCA Civ 1110, a case about publication of judgments in City’s dispute with the league, not a finding on the underlying charges; see Jamie Jackson, “Court ruling shows Premier League still investigating Manchester City over FFP,” The Guardian, July 20, 2021.

17. Premier League statement, February 6, 2023. The official referral lists rules and seasons; the 54/14/5/7/35 breakdown is the conventional press summary.

18. Core Decision, p. 1 (hearing dates) and paras. 16, 18 and 27 (hearing days, transcripts, witnesses, and the “regrettable” delay). On Lord Pannick and the initial report of the outcome by The Athletic: Lori Ewing, “Man City found guilty on all but one of 115 charges, reports say, with appeal expected,” Reuters, September 25, 2026.

19. Core Decision, paras. 1 and 7. The October 2 appeal deadline was specified in the Premier League’s September 29 statement; see also Premier League statement on City’s appeal, October 2, 2026.

20. The evidentiary standard and the “utmost good faith” finding are summarized in Mishcon de Reya’s analysis of the decision.

21. Neville: The Independent via Yahoo Sports, October 1, 2026. Carragher: Irish News/PA, October 1, 2026. Pulis: Sky Sports, September 30, 2026. FA: FA statement, October 2, 2026.

22. Sky Sports, “Manchester City charges: Latest on sanctions hearing and appeal,” October 12, 2026; Premier League statement, September 29, 2026.

23. Premier League Handbook 2026-27, Section W (the sanctions provision is now numbered W.64); Al Jazeera, “What will happen to Man City,” September 30, 2026; Hogan Lovells, “The Premier League’s red card”. An expelled club would enter League Two subject to a vote of the 72 EFL clubs.

24. Everton: 10 points in November 2023, reduced to 6 on appeal in February 2024, plus 2 more in April 2024 (CBS Sports). Nottingham Forest: 4 points in March 2024 for a £34.5 million overspend. Chelsea: £10.75 million fine, a suspended one-year transfer ban and a nine-month academy transfer ban, March 2026 (The42). The last English precedent for expulsion over financial misconduct is Leeds City, expelled from the Football League in 1919 for illegal payments to players and refusing to hand over its books.

25. Kieran Maguire (University of Liverpool): 50 to 60 points plus a substantial fine; above roughly 70 points would relegate City even if it won every remaining match (TEAMtalk, October 4, 2026). Stefan Borson: “severe” but proportionate to Everton, Forest and Chelsea (Football Insider, October 11, 2026). Dan Chapman (Leathes Prior): “a very serious sporting sanction, as well as a huge fine” (TEAMtalk, September 28, 2026). Rival clubs: Sky Sports, October 7, 2026. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy’s remarks were reported by the Mirror, September 30, 2026.

26. Sky Sports, “Man City lodge appeal,” October 3, 2026; NBC Sports, “Latest news, key details and what’s next as Manchester City launch appeal”. Under the 2026-27 rules the hearing must occur within 12 weeks (by about December 24), last no more than five days, and be decided within 30 days; no new evidence is admitted without leave. The Telegraph and BBC Sport have reported that City’s appeal rests on contemporaneous bank statements, payment records, emails and letters said to show the top-ups came from the Abu Dhabi government as a shareholder in the sponsors; legal observers quoted by the BBC describe the appeal as facing “substantial hurdles.” Appeal Board decisions are final subject to challenge under sections 67 and 68 of the Arbitration Act 1996; section 69 is excluded.

27. Independent Football Regulator statement, September 30, 2026; IFR chair David Kogan has said the regulator will await the outcome of the appeal and would resign if subjected to political pressure. HMRC: Dan Neidle, Tax Policy Associates, October 1, 2026, estimating £11.6 million of income tax and national insurance (£23 to 24 million with interest and penalties) on an arrangement he infers was Roberto Mancini’s parallel contract with Al Jazira, and noting potential exposure under section 17 of the Theft Act 1968 and the Companies Act 2006, while stressing that no allegation is made against any named person. Treasury Committee chair Meg Hillier wrote to HMRC on October 1. No HMRC, Serious Fraud Office or police action has been reported. UEFA: Sky Sports, October 6, 2026.

28. The protective notices were lodged in November 2024. Estimates of £100 to 200 million per club are speculative. Burnley’s claim against Everton is listed for hearing in January 2027. Soriano has told staff that City will seek compensation from parties that damage the club.

29. Khaldoon Al Mubarak’s June remarks were in his annual end-of-season interview. Christopher Davidson’s comments were reported by The Athletic and summarized by Football365, October 5, 2026. Burnham: Reuters via The Star, October 1, 2026; clubs’ reaction and Downing Street’s clarification via BBC Sport, October 8, 2026.

30. Juventus 2006 (Calciopoli): relegated to Serie B, stripped of the 2004-05 and 2005-06 titles; Luciano Moggi banned for life (Wikipedia). Juventus 2023: 15 points in January, annulled and re-imposed at 10 in May; excluded from the 2023-24 Conference League by UEFA; Agnelli banned two years plus 16 months; in September 2025 Agnelli, Pavel Nedved and Fabio Paratici accepted plea bargains with suspended sentences and Juventus SpA paid a €156,000 fine (CBS Sports; UEFA; ANSA). Marseille 1993: stripped of the French title, relegated, barred from defending the Champions League; Tapie served nearly six months in 1997 (Wikipedia). Saracens: £5.36 million fine and 35 points in November 2019, 70 more points and relegation in January 2020; Nigel Wray resigned (Wikipedia). Melbourne Storm 2010: stripped of the 2007 and 2009 premierships and three minor premierships, fined A$1.7 million, and barred from earning points in 2010 (Wikipedia). Rangers 2012: administration, liquidation and placement in the fourth tier; £250,000 fine for undisclosed side-letters, titles not stripped; Craig Whyte acquitted of fraud in 2017 (Wikipedia).

31. Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK government on March 10, 2022, and Chelsea was sold under government licence for about £4.25 billion with the proceeds frozen; Chelsea’s new owners self-reported the Abramovich-era payments, producing a €10 million UEFA settlement in 2023 and the Premier League sanction in 2026. Other forced exits: the EFL disqualified Reading’s owner Dai Yongge in 2025 and ordered a sale (Reading Today); Sheffield Wednesday’s Dejphon Chansiri was banned for three years (Insider Sport); India’s Supreme Court forced N. Srinivasan out of the BCCI and the Chennai Super Kings were suspended for two years (Wikipedia); Bernie Ecclestone paid about $100 million to end a German bribery trial in 2014 and in 2023 pleaded guilty in London to fraud over an undeclared £400 million trust, receiving a suspended sentence and paying HMRC £652 million (ITV). On the IFR’s powers: Lewis Silkin, “The Independent Football Regulator: an overview,” May 2026.

32. On the league’s push to sanction before the appeal: Sky Sports, as relayed by Time News, October 20, 2026. Chapman (Leathes Prior) and the expected stay of execution: Graeme Bailey, TEAMtalk, October 20, 2026; Borson on talkSPORT, as summarized by Football365, October 20, 2026. Kogan’s remarks on The Rest Is Football: PA Media via Sinar Daily, October 21, 2026 and Football365, October 21, 2026. Kogan also said it was premature to discuss any action while the appeal is pending. As of October 22 no sanctions hearing date had been announced.