The Price of the Sham Contracts: Man City's £1.388bn Transfer Spree, Season by Season

Figures compiled by The Athletic from the Premier League commission's findings show Manchester City spent £1.388 billion on new players across the nine seasons the club was charged over — a period in which the commission found owner funding from the Abu Dhabi United Group was being disguised as sponsorship income to keep the spending within football's financial rules. The calculation, published as the club's appeal works its way through a new independent panel, puts a single number on what the 750-page commission report described: more than £900 million of equity pumped in through "sham" contracts between 2009/10 and 2017/18, underwriting a transfer spree that transformed a mid-table club into a serial champion.

City were found liable on 114 of the 115 charges brought by the Premier League, with the commission finding the club filed misstated accounts and concealed its true financial position from auditors and regulators. The club denies wrongdoing and is appealing; no punishment has been decided, and the verdict covers spending only up to 2017-18.

How the money moved

The Athletic's breakdown, carried by Business Standard and Read Man City, maps the disguised funding directly onto the signings it enabled. In 2009, the first full season after Sheikh Mansour's Abu Dhabi United Group took control, City's net transfer spend was £128 million — while the other 19 Premier League clubs combined managed £145 million. The commission found that was ADUG's first season of injecting cash disguised as sponsorship, with the club recording £295 million in owner injections that campaign while ADUG sponsorship accounted for only £22.5 million on the books.

The pattern repeated at the spending's peaks. In 2015-16, City posted gross outlay of £175 million and a net spend of £148 million — each the highest in world football that season — while signing Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling for a combined £99.5 million. The club's accounts stated no owner funding arrived that year; the commission found £120.2 million of ADUG cash did, booked as sponsorship.

• £1.388 billion spent on new players across the nine charged seasons, per The Athletic's figures.
• £128 million net spend in 2009 alone, against £145 million for the rest of the Premier League combined.
• £120.2 million of ADUG cash found by the commission in 2015-16, a season the accounts showed no owner funding.
• More than £900 million in total owner funding found to have been disguised as sponsorship revenue.

What the funding bought

Not all of it bought success. Emmanuel Adebayor and Roque Santa Cruz cost £43 million between them in 2009 and delivered 23 goals in City colours combined; Stevan Jovetic, Alvaro Negredo, Eliaquim Mangala and Wilfried Bony added more than £100 million over a 17-month stretch with little lasting legacy. But the compounding effect did the work: Tevez, Yaya Toure, David Silva and Sergio Aguero arrived on the disguised funding and City won three Premier League titles between 2012 and 2018 — with the broadcast and commercial revenue of a serial winner following, benefits that outlasted the charged period itself.

The club was relying on sham agreements to artificially inflate the club's revenues and reduce its costs.— Premier League announcement of the independent commission's findings, 29 September 2026

That is the distinction at the heart of any eventual sanction. The commission's case was never that spending big is an offence — it is that the money doing the spending was presented as commercial income it was not, allowing City to appear compliant with break-even rules while outspending rivals who stayed inside them. The £1.388 billion figure gives the compensation claims being weighed by rival clubs a concrete base to argue from.

City continue to play under the verdict's shadow — top of the table on the pitch while chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak insists "nothing has changed" and the appeal will clear them. The Athletic's numbers make the stakes plainer: a decade of signings, three titles and the commercial empire built on them all rest on how a panel now reads nine seasons of contracts.

Reported by Ines Kovač for OneLightScore, based on The Athletic's spending figures from the Premier League commission's findings, carried by Business Standard and Read Man City. Cover image: the Etihad Stadium via Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons licence.