Manchester City Found Liable on 114 of 115 Charges as Premier League Verdict Leaks: What It Means for Football Governance

An independent commission has reportedly found Manchester City liable on 114 of the 115 Premier League financial charges brought against the club in February 2023, according to David Ornstein of The Athletic, with BBC Sport, Bloomberg and the Manchester Evening News each confirming the shape of the decision through their own briefed sources. The ruling has not been published, sanctions have not been decided, and City are expected to appeal — but if the briefings hold, the most consequential governance case in English football history has tipped decisively against the champions.

What the reports actually say

The charges, levelled after a four-year Premier League investigation, alleged City failed to provide accurate financial information, failed to disclose details of player and manager remuneration across seasons from 2009-10 to 2017-18, and breached both UEFA financial fair play requirements and the league's own profitability and sustainability rules. A three-person independent commission heard ten weeks of evidence in late 2024, and Premier League chief executive Richard Masters had conceded the verdict was taking "longer than anyone expected."

According to the reports, the commission found against City on all but one of the 115 counts. What it did not do — yet — is decide the punishment. The reported position is that points deductions, fines, the status of the titles City won between 2011 and 2018, and the sporting consequences that follow all remain open questions, and that the sanction would be published before any appeal is completed.

The club's response

City have not contested the substance publicly, sticking instead to process. "The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements to be completed, and subject to strict confidentiality," a club spokesperson told The Athletic, CNN and Sky Sports. "As such Manchester City FC's position remains consistent with the club's statement of February 2023." That statement had expressed surprise at the charges and pointed to "the extensive engagement and vast amount of detailed materials" provided to the league.

The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements to be completed, and subject to strict confidentiality.— Manchester City FC statement, 25 September 2026

The compensation floodgates

The business consequences are already being sized. Premier League clubs have sought legal advice on whether they hold compensation claims over the case, and Sky News reported lawyers warning of a wave of follow-on litigation. Paul Stothard, a partner at global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, said an upheld finding "will open the floodgates to further legal challenges," with rival clubs able to pursue compensation for lost revenue, missed European qualification or relegation — provided they can prove how City's breaches damaged their own results and quantify the loss.

That bar is high, but the number of aggrieved parties is not small. Every club that finished second to a City title, missed a European place by a City result, or was relegated in a season City contested is now a potential claimant. The sums at stake in lost prize money, broadcasting revenue and European distributions run to hundreds of millions of pounds across the charged period.

What happens next

Three steps remain before this becomes a final outcome: the commission's sanction, which reports suggest will be released before an appeal completes; City's expected appeal to a fresh panel; and then the league's own decisions about how to enforce whatever survives. The Premier League has not commented, and the judgment itself remains unpublished — which means every number in circulation this week traces back to anonymous briefings, not to a public document.

For the league's regulators, the report lands at a delicate moment: the Independent Football Regulator is already standing up, the backstop row over EFL funding is unresolved, and now the sport's flagship competition faces the possibility of stripping or sanctioning its most successful club of the era. However the appeal ends, the case has already changed what clubs, lawyers and investors assume about the enforcement of financial rules in English football.

Reporting by Ines Kovač, drawing on The Athletic, BBC Sport, Bloomberg, the Manchester Evening News and Sky News. Cover image: Etihad Stadium via Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons licence.