Man City guilty, reports say. Three of five such clubs appealed the ruling.
Reports say an independent panel found Manchester City guilty of almost all 115 charges. The punishment has not been set.
What happened
Sources told BBC Sport that an independent commission has found Manchester City guilty of breaking the majority of the 115 Premier League financial charges against the club. No punishment has been announced.
An independent commission has found Manchester City guilty of most of the 115 charges brought by the Premier League in , sources told BBC Sport. Al Jazeera, citing Reuters and other reports, says City were found guilty of all but one. Neither the club nor the league has confirmed the verdict, and the written decision has not been published.
No punishment has been set. The BBC says it was never expected to come with the verdict. The commission can choose a fine, a points deduction, or removal from the Premier League, and Sky Sports reports there would be a separate hearing on the punishment.
The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements to be completed, and subject to strict confidentiality.
Manchester City statement, via BBC Sport
City are expected to appeal. Either side has 14 days from the verdict, and a new panel of three hears the case. The Guardian says the appeal would be against the verdict itself, before any punishment, and should end within 12 weeks. City cannot take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The charges cover the nine seasons from 2009-10 to 2017-18, when City won the league three times. City lead the league after five wins from five this season. Other clubs are already asking lawyers about claims for compensation.
Sources: BBC, Al Jazeera, Sky Sports, The Guardian
The Pattern
We looked for cases where a sports league charged one of its clubs with breaking its money rules, the club denied it, and an independent panel found the club guilty. We found five such cases since 2019. One is rugby, where Saracens broke the league’s limit on player pay. One is City’s own Uefa case of 2020, judged by a different body.
Show the other 3 cases
The Read
History points to an appeal. In three of the five cases the club took its case to a higher body: Sheffield Wednesday in , City against Uefa 12 days after its ban, and Leicester within 14 days. Saracens said they would appeal and dropped the plan 13 days later. Derby did not appeal, because the panel had cleared it of most charges.
City’s case is different in one way. In the earlier cases the club appealed after it knew its punishment. City would appeal against the guilty finding before any punishment is set, and has not said officially that it will appeal, though BBC Sport was told it would. The 14 days start when the Premier League announces the verdict, and the league has not done that yet. City’s case is also much bigger than any of the five, with 115 charges over nine seasons.
The written reasons usually came out quickly. Leicester’s came the same day and Derby published its own two days later. Saracens’ came after 79 days, although the club had opposed publishing them. In City’s Uefa case they stayed private until the appeal was decided. Most first punishments took points or banned the club; Derby, found guilty only over how it wrote its accounts, was fined.
Sources: Premier League (2), Sky Sports (2, 3, 4, 5), BBC, The Guardian, Derby County, Uefa
Disclaimer
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