Treasury Committee Puts HMRC on the Clock Over Manchester City Tax Questions With 15 October Deadline

The chair of the House of Commons Treasury Committee has written to HM Revenue and Customs demanding answers on the tax implications of the Premier League's verdict against Manchester City, escalating a football governance scandal into the machinery of the British state. In a letter published on 1 October, Dame Meg Hillier asked HMRC permanent secretary JP Marks whether the department has requested an unredacted copy of the commission's report, and set a deadline of Thursday 15 October 2026 for a reply.

The intervention follows Tuesday's publication of the independent commission's core decision, which found that Manchester City committed well over 100 individual breaches of Premier League rules across nine seasons, relying on what the report described as sham agreements to inflate revenues and reduce costs. City continue to deny any wrongdoing and face a 2 October deadline to lodge an appeal.

What the letter asks

Hillier's letter, addressed to Marks and published on the UK Parliament website, asks whether HMRC is aware of the commission's findings and whether the department has sought the redacted documents contained within the report. She also requests an overview of HMRC's wider work around the taxation of remuneration and other potential tax avoidance within football clubs.

While I acknowledge that taxpayer confidentiality may inhibit what you can disclose, I would welcome reassurance from HMRC that you are seized of the importance of these issues and the public interest in the case.— Dame Meg Hillier MP, chair of the Treasury Committee, in her letter to HMRC, 1 October 2026

Sky Sports, which first reported the letter, noted that HMRC could now examine whether the right amount of tax and national insurance was paid during the nine seasons in which the breaches were found. The Treasury Committee, a cross-party group of MPs that oversees HMRC's policies and administration, has said it will place both the letter and the response in the public domain.

A second front for City's owners

The parliamentary letter opens a second regulatory front for the champions while the first is still being fought. City's appeal will be heard by a Premier League appeal board, but the tax question sits outside football's jurisdiction entirely: HMRC answers to Parliament, not to the league, and a parliamentary committee has now put its scrutiny on the record with a dated deadline.

BBC Sport reported that the commission's findings require scrutiny from the tax authority, and Reuters described the fallout as having reached Parliament with Hillier's letter. The Treasury Committee's usual practice is to publish responses in full, meaning HMRC's position on the City case could become public before the middle of October.

For a club already facing an appeal, potential sanctions and compensation claims from rivals, the significance of Thursday's letter is that it cannot be appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, negotiated through lawyers or settled privately. It is a question put to a government department by its oversight committee, with a clock on it and a promise that the answer will be published.

This report draws on Ines Kovač's coverage of the Manchester City case for OneLightScore, with reporting from Sky Sports, BBC Sport and Reuters, and on the Treasury Committee's letter as published by the UK Parliament. Cover image of the Etihad Stadium by Cléria De Souza via Wikimedia Commons, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 licence.