Ferran Soriano spent Monday evening in a room in Copenhagen with the executives of the clubs that want Manchester City punished, and told them this is nowhere near finished.
Four days after an independent commission was reported to have found City guilty of 114 of the 115 charges brought against them by the Premier League, the club’s chief executive addressed the board of European Football Clubs ahead of the body’s general assembly in the Danish capital on Tuesday. Among those present were representatives of Manchester United and Everton — two of the clubs that have already reserved the right to pursue City for compensation. Soriano’s message, BBC Sport has been told, was that the case has been in the public domain for eight years and that “it’s going to take a lot more time”. He left without taking questions from reporters.
A defiant message to the rivals in the room
The choice of venue mattered. European Football Clubs — the rebranded European Club Association — is the forum where the continent’s biggest sides carve up commercial and competition policy, and City remain central to it. Soriano did not use it to apologise or to prepare the ground for a settlement. He used it to tell the clubs positioning themselves for damages that City intend to litigate every remaining stage, and that the verdict reported on Friday is a waypoint rather than a conclusion.
Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak struck the same note in a letter to supporters on Saturday, writing that “the Premier League process still has a long way to run, and our confidence and intent in proving the club’s innocence is just as strong as when this began”. Both men are constrained by the confidentiality that has governed the case from the outset — the commission’s findings have not been published, the Premier League has declined to comment, and City’s public position rests on a document nobody outside the process has read.
What the commission is reported to have found
The Premier League charged City on 6 February 2023 after a five-year investigation that began in 2018, covering the seasons from 2009-10 to 2017-18. The 115 charges break down as:
- 54 counts of failing to provide accurate financial information
- 35 counts of failing to co-operate with the league’s investigation
- 14 counts relating to player and manager remuneration details
- 7 breaches of the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules
- 5 breaches of UEFA’s financial regulations
At the heart of the case is the allegation that sponsorship income was inflated and that payments were made off the books, disguising the true scale of the owners’ funding. A three-person commission heard the case in private over 10 weeks between 16 September and 6 December 2024, with City’s defence led by David Pannick KC. The verdict — first reported by The Athletic’s David Ornstein and corroborated by BBC Sport — was that all but one charge was proven.
The period covered includes the titles of 2011-12 and 2013-14, City’s first two in the Premier League era, and the club’s emergence from mid-table into the most dominant side English football has produced. That is why the consequences are not a matter of accounting alone.
Sanctions, appeal and the queue for compensation
No punishment has been set. The Premier League handbook offers no tariff converting breaches into points, leaving the commission a range that runs from a fine through a points deduction to expulsion, with the annulment of past titles theoretically available. Everton and Nottingham Forest were docked points for PSR breaches in 2023-24 — two and four respectively, after appeal — but those were single, admitted overspends, not a nine-year pattern of contested misreporting plus 35 counts of obstruction. The failure-to-co-operate charges are likely to weigh heavily; commissions have historically treated obstruction as an aggravating factor in its own right.
City will appeal to a separate Premier League appeal board, whose decision is final and binding, with the courts available only on narrow grounds. Sports lawyers expect the process to run well into 2027. Only once sanctions survive appeal does the civil exposure crystallise, and several clubs have already filed paperwork preserving claims for lost prize money, European qualification and commercial revenue — a bill that would dwarf any fine.
Soriano’s arithmetic in Copenhagen was pointed. Eight years from investigation to verdict; an appeal, then damages claims, then whatever follows. City’s rivals wanted Friday to be the end of it. Their chief executive told them, to their faces, that it is not.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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