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Over nine seasons, Manchester City told the Premier League they had earned £949.94m in commercial income from a cluster of Abu Dhabi companies. The sponsors themselves paid £119.25m of it. The other £830.69m — 87p in every pound — came from Abu Dhabi United Group, the club’s own owner, routed through partners so it would land in the accounts as sponsorship rather than what it was.
That single pair of numbers sits at the centre of the 40-page document published this week by the independent commission that found City guilty of serious breaches of Premier League financial rules between 2009-10 and 2017-18. Every charge was found proven bar one, a single count relating to non-cooperation. The commission called what City built the “Disguised Funding Scheme”, concluded the club’s financial statements over that period “did not show a true and fair view”, and found the conduct “extremely serious, significant, sustained and intentional or reckless”.
Project Longbow and the Fordham front
The document’s most revealing passages are not about scale but about design. The inflated sponsorship sat inside a wider internal programme the commission names as “Project Longbow” — a set of strands aimed at raising reported revenue and cutting reported costs at the same time.
Its clearest expression was what the report calls the Fordham Arrangement, which it describes as “little more than a front for ADUG” and “a device by which ADUG funds could be paid into the club in a manner that concealed their true origin”. Fordham alone overstated City’s income by £24.5m and understated their expenses by £49.414m. Separately, the commission found three undisclosed remuneration agreements worth around £17m that never appeared in the club’s books at all.
The timing matters. The scheme helped City avoid breaching the Premier League’s permitted loss threshold in 2009-10, then accelerated sharply from 2011-12 — the point at which UEFA’s financial fair play regulations began to bite. By 2017-18, City booked £145.73m of commercial revenue from those sponsors. Around £11m of it was genuine. The remaining £134.73m was owner money wearing a sponsor’s badge.
The £9.9m hole and the witnesses who lied
One episode in the document explains the mechanics better than any figure. On 25 May 2013, five days before the financial year closed, City were £9.9m short of where they needed to be. Nobody contacted the declared sponsors. Instead, modified agreements were generated within days, recording bonus payments for events that had already happened and funding for a United States tour. The hole was plugged.
The commission also found a pattern of “continued concealment” — City regularly adjusting how arrangements were structured and presented specifically to “reduce the likelihood of difficult questions” from the Premier League and other regulators. It found the club made “concerted efforts to stop and frustrate” the investigation, and that City “clearly intended to circumvent” the rules.
City’s explanation was that sponsors occasionally sought financial assistance from the Abu Dhabi government, which met shortfalls through the Crown Prince’s Court. The commission rejected it outright as “untrue” and constructed “very late in the day”. Then came the line that will follow the case wherever it goes next: while most witnesses tried to tell the truth, some gave evidence “that they knew to be untrue”. Finding dishonesty against named witnesses is rare in proceedings of this kind.
Much of this was first sketched out by the leaked emails Der Spiegel published in 2018 — including one December 2012 instruction that £27m be funded via Etihad and £15m via Etisalat, “routed through the partners”. What was then contested reporting is now findings of fact.
Sanctions, appeal and a decade in the balance
The commission took 1,331 days to reach its verdict, working through roughly 7,000 pages of transcript from 27 witnesses across 42 hearing days in late 2024. “It has taken us much longer than we would have wished,” the panel wrote. The three members’ names are redacted from the published document.
Sanction is a separate hearing, and the range is wide: fines, a points deduction, or expulsion. City have until Friday 2 October to appeal, and will. The club says it is “disappointed and surprised”, maintains it is innocent, and cites “material errors, of law, principle and fact”. Chief executive Ferran Soriano has reduced the case to “a single false accusation”.
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said City “systematically broke Premier League rules for nearly a decade”. That decade produced six league titles and a Champions League. Nothing in the 40 pages touches those trophies. What comes next might.
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One note on sourcing: the £830m owner-funded total appears as £830.69m in Sky Sports and Sports Illustrated but £830.39m in one ESPN piece — I used the former. The Der Spiegel email figures (£27m Etihad, £15m Etisalat) come from the 2018 leaks that triggered the investigation, and I framed them that way rather than attributing them to the 40-page document itself.
Sources: [Sky Sports key findings](https://www.skysports.com/football/news/13593407/man-city-charges-verdict-key-findings-the-fordham-arrangement-effectively-a-front-for-abu-dhabi-united-group), [SI seven takeaways](https://www.si.com/soccer/seven-takeaways-from-official-report-man-city-cheating), [ESPN findings](https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/50059830/man-city-owners-inflated-revenue-830m-premier-league-breaches-findings), [ESPN verdict](https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/50059403/man-city-guilty-all-charges-premier-league-breach-case-independent-commission), [NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/sports/soccer/man-city-guilty-almost-115-financial-charges-premier-league-says-rcna600523)
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.
913 articles published
