Following on from the BBC article posted recently “explaining” the 115 charges laid at Man City’s feet, I decided to look properly at what the charges are, given that the article barely went further than rehashing that Man City cheated over and over again without any attempt at critical analysis.

What are the breaches?

There are 5 main areas that the breaches fall into:

• Accuracy of financial information
• Manager and player remuneration
• Compliance with UEFA regulations
• Compliance with PSR
• Cooperation with the investigation

The actual text of the Premier League’s statement can be seen here: https://www.premierleague.com/news/3045970

Where did the breaches come from?

The original source of the allegations were leaked emails from Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto. Rui Pinto was handed a 4 year suspended sentence last year for attempted extortion, illegal access to data and breach of correspondence with relation to the leaks, which were posted via his Football Leaks website in 2015. Emails from Manchester City were not the only things leaked - players like Messi and Neymar were also caught up in some leaks related to their salaries. In total there were millions of documents.

These leaked emails surfaced via Der Spiegel in 2018 as part of an expose feature which they ran, and spanned 4 articles at the time. You can read the first here: https://www.spiegel.de/international/manchester-city-exposed-bending-the-rules-to-the-tune-of-millions-a-1236346.html

On the back of these leaks UEFA, after launching an investigation in March 2019, charged Manchester City with breaches of their regulations which led, in 2020, to the club being banned from European football for 2 seasons alongside a 30m euro fine.

Alongside that UEFA investigation, the Premier League also opened an investigation. It took until 2023 for them to present their charges - the statement linked above. The case is ongoing.

What about those UEFA breaches?

The club denied any wrongdoing and appealed to CAS, the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Upon hearing the case CAS found no evidence to support UEFA’s conclusions with regards to the allegations. As a result the club’s ban from European football was overturned with immediate effect. CAS sided with UEFA on their non-cooperation charges and stated that the club could have done more to provide UEFA with documents when requested. CAS therefore issued a 10m Euro fine.

You can read the verdict here: https://www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_upload/CAS_Award_6785___internet__.pdf

This was the second time that the club had a run-in with UEFA. They first had a disagreement over potential breaches in 2014 related to the club spending more than the allowed amount in the previous season - the club contested that this was the result of UEFA not allowing deductibles for existing contracts started before FFP was introduced. There were no charges laid at City for this - the club entered a settlement with UEFA and a subsequent monitoring period with specific break even requirements and squad restrictions. That period ended in 2017 with UEFA declaring that the club had complied with all of the agreements within the settlement.

Didn’t City get away with it because everything was time barred?

The CAS verdict did find that the first 2 years of alleged breaches related to the club’s financial statements (the bits referred to as inflated sponsorships) were time barred (a process whereby the time permitted to bring forward the issue has passed and it is no longer possible to pursue the case - 5 years in UEFA’s rules), and so could not be considered. The rest of the years questioned were considered, and ultimately no evidence was found of financial irregularities.

Onto the 115

The Premier League statement lists 5 key areas of breaches, outlined earlier, which I will dive into more now. In total, the number of rules that the Premier League have accused Manchester City of breaching is 130. That is broken down into:

• Accuracy of financial information: 50 rules (2009/10 to 2017/18)
• Manager and player remuneration: 20 rules (2009/10 to 2015/16)
• Compliance with UEFA regulations: 5 rules (2013/14 to 2017/18)
• PSR compliance: 25 rules (2015/16 to 2017/18)
• Non-cooperation: 30 rules (2018/19 to 2022/23)

No matter how I try to recalculate it, I never get 115. I'm unsure of the exact place that the 115 number came from, and it certainly doesn't match the numbers when broken down in the BBC article.

I have broken down the list of breaches and cross referenced them with the Premier League’s handbooks for each season from 2009/10 through to 2022/23. With all five areas of breaches I have provided the text of the rule that the League included in their statement, plus a summarised version that tries to give a less legalese or technical reading. The tables are presented for reference and I won’t go into the specifics of them.

Accuracy of financial information

The Premier League stated:

In respect of each of Seasons 2009/10 to 2017/18 inclusive, the Premier League Rules applicable in those seasons that required provision by a member club to the Premier League, in the utmost good faith, of accurate financial information that gives a true and fair view of the club’s financial position, in particular with respect to its revenue (including sponsorship revenue), its related parties and its operating costs.

Below is the list of breaches taken from the league’s statement, grouped and translated into easier language.

Effectively the Premier League are stating that, for the period of 2009 until 2018, the club have not been filing accurate financial statements. This relates directly to the leaked emails that are presented to show members of staff discussing payment amounts and sources of monies that are paid to the club for sponsorship, namely for the two main sponsors, Etihad and Etisalat, that are referenced in the UEFA trial. As can be seen from the rules above, some of them are more obviously related than others. There has been some criticism of the Premier League for going for such a wide number of charges, as they have not focused on one area.

With regards to this section of breaches, the club claims that the leaked emails are not evidence of wrongdoing, and are not admissible as evidence. CAS found in favour of UEFA’s assertion that the emails were in fact admissible in their case, so the club is unlikely to be able to contest this point further. This section will essentially boil down to whether the leaked emails show enough evidence of wrongdoing, and whether any further context that has been provided by the club (something that was mentioned in the CAS trial as being helpful towards Man City’s case) is sufficient to prove guilt. It is likely that only 1 or 2 of these 50 rules above are actually key. Others, like B13, B15, and B16 which relate to clubs acting in good faith, would not be enough to charge a club without being bundled in with something else.

Manager and Player Remuneration

This section is broken down further into 2 key areas: manager remuneration, and player remuneration.

The Premier League statement:

In respect of each of Seasons 2009/10 to 2012/13 inclusive, the Premier League Rules applicable in those Seasons requiring a member club to include full details of manager remuneration in its relevant contracts with its manager

And;

In respect of each of Seasons 2010/11 to 2015/16 inclusive, the Premier League Rules applicable in those Seasons requiring a member club to include full details of player remuneration in its relevant contracts with its players

Grouped and summarised below:

The first two key rules relate to manager remuneration, and this is specific to the contract of Roberto Mancini. Mancini was the club’s manager from 2009 until 2013, and the allegations center around leaked emails that suggest he was paid £1.75 million annually as a consultancy fee for UAE based club Al Jazira on top of his £1.45 million salary at City.

For his part, Mancini has stated “I have paid my taxes, it's all above board. So I don't think anyone will be in touch” when asked about the case. 

The second two rules are player remuneration and relate to Yaya Toure. The League alleges, again based on the leaked emails, that the club did not disclose all payments to the player, and that payments were made via his agent, Dimitri Seluk, during his contract with the club.

Seluk has stated “I know what has been said about Yaya's contract with City - and what I can tell you is that absolutely everything was done very cleanly, very honestly and with full transparency. Nothing was done under the table.”

Toure was at the club from 2010 until 2018. He originally signed a five year deal, before signing a new contract in 2013 taking him up to 2017. He signed his final 1 year deal in 2017. These allegations relate to his first 6 seasons.

Compliance with UEFA regulations

This section simply relates to the wording of the Premier League rules which state that clubs competing in European competitions must comply with UEFA’s rules in addition to the Premier League’s. 

The league states:

In respect of each of Seasons 2013/14 to 2017/18 inclusive, the Premier League Rules applicable in those Seasons requiring a member club to comply with UEFA’s regulations, including UEFA’s Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations

Once again I’ve presented them grouped and summarised below:

This rule breach seemingly relates to the period of time that was not ruled as time barred within UEFA’s case, and is not related to the original settlement between the club and UEFA, but does include the 3 years of the settlement agreement up until UEFA declared City to be compliant. Presumably the Premier League have included these to link to UEFA’s allegations of financial discrepancies related to the Etihad deal. It is unclear how much this could stick, given that CAS ruled that there was insufficient evidence of wrongdoing. 

It feels amiss of the Premier League to charge the club with breaches of a rule that had already been thrown out by CAS, so I can only assume that they feel that the club have either breached other rules related to financial fair play, which doesn’t seem to be the case, or they are using the non-cooperation fine handed out by CAS to bring these charges forward.

Compliance with PSR

The Premier League have also charged Man City with breaching profit and sustainability rules. These are the rules that Everton and Nottingham Forest have been docked points for recently and relate to the annual accounts clubs must file to prove their compliance. 

The league states:

In respect of each of the Seasons 2015/16 to 2017/18 inclusive, the Premier League Rules applicable in those Seasons on Profitability and Sustainability

I’ve laid these out below, grouped again, and summarised. It should be noted in the below that any reference to T, T-1 and T-2 refers to the current season, previous and 2 seasons before.

A lot of this is not specific to anything the club will have breached, and is again a criticism that has been levelled at the Premier League for not being focused enough on charging the club and instead trying to go for as much as possible. Eg rule E52 in the 2015/16 season isn’t really something that would be up for debate, and rule E60, which refers to seasons spent outside the Premier League for adjusting the £105m 3 season PSR limit.

I don’t believe that the club has breached a lot of these rules specifically, and that the Premier League has just grouped PSR as a category together to hit the club with multiple charges. It is likely that the key rule in this section is E54, which discusses related party income and fair market value. This is an important one for City, as the leaked emails have been presented to show the club receiving money from sponsors with funds that have come directly from ADUG, Abu Dhabi United Group, owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan and with an 81% stake in the CFG (City Football Group) that comprises the club.

City have always argued that these sponsorships are not related parties, something that has been previously accepted by both the Premier League and UEFA in separate agreements related to PSR and FFP under their rules. It is likely that the key here is whether the emails imply that they should in fact be counted as related parties, and therefore whether they represent fair market value.

For the other rules in this section, it is unlikely that anything of substance will be proven or even sought.

Cooperation with the investigation

In addition to the above 4 sections, which all covered rule breaches related to the hacked emails, the Premier League charged the club with non-cooperation with their investigation. This does not relate to the breaches themselves, and so you will notice that the seasons are all after the Der Spiegel investigation.

The charges are:

In respect of the period from December 2018 to date, the Premier League Rules applicable in the relevant Seasons requiring a member club to cooperate with, and assist, the Premier League in its investigations, including by providing documents and information to the Premier League in the utmost good faith

Grouped and summarised:

Three of these are your meat and potatoes non-cooperation charges, which the Premier League will have charged City with for not providing documents when requested. A couple relate specifically to individuals within a club, but otherwise these breaches will be the most likely to stick, similar to how they did at CAS.

Man City have maintained that they do not need to cooperate with the investigation which they state as being based on illegally obtained material and have stated that they do not trust the investigation.

Rules B15, B16 make another appearance relating to acting with the utmost good faith.

When will this hearing take place?

We don’t really know. The panel has been chosen and are presumably deliberating, but as with cases of this size and with so many documents, they take time. 

League CEO Richard Masters has recently stated that the case will “Resolve itself soon”, which is badly worded and has led to speculation that the club and league are seeking a way out of the case following the charges being thrown out. This is unlikely, as it would be in the interest of both to end proceedings as quickly as possible.

There have been criticisms towards the Premier League regarding the secrecy around these hearings - it is actually within the Premier League’s rules that these occur in private:

Rules W70 and X25 state: The proceedings of an arbitration convened under this Section (W/X) shall be confidential and shall be conducted in private.

Aren’t Man City just stalling?

Not really, no. The club have been charged with non-cooperation by the Premier League for their initial investigation, but there is nothing the club can do to further postpone the hearing taking place. The time required is simply because of the magnitude and seriousness of the allegations put forward by the league. 

The original BBC article alleged that City were “dragging their feet” - but this is not something that stops the league handing out charges, and isn’t something that will change the timeline of the independent panel’s investigation.

Punishments

So let's say that City is found guilty - what are the likely punishments to be? The answer is complicated, as it completely depends on what charges are ultimately determined to be warranted. Talk of points deductions amounting to the thousands are pure hyperbole. The specific breaches agreed by the independent panel will influence the size of any punishment.

Given the seriousness of the allegations - essentially fraud across multiple years involving the club, sponsors, auditors and governing bodies - there must be a high bar of proof. With such a high bar also comes a high punishment if the club is deemed to be guilty. It is entirely possible that a proportionate punishment to such deceit would be expulsion from the league. This would however be the least of the club’s worries, as it brings into question the legality of the breaches with regards to individuals, HMRC and other organisations from which payments may or may not have been withheld or deliberately reported incorrectly.

Some of the above charges do not risk carrying any sort of point based punishment. The non-cooperation charges, for example, would be a monetary fine. It is also very unlikely that the league would seek to remove past titles. The scope and burden of proof that specific breaches directly correlated to titles would be too complicated.

Expulsion from the Premier League would require the club to apply to join another league, the EFL the most likely candidate. It would be at the discretion of the EFL whether they accepted the club into their league structure. Given the size of the club and the need to replace the 20th team in the Premier League, it would be likely that they would agree to include the club in their league system as a space would open up in the Championship.

Can the club appeal a decision?

Yes, there are avenues for appeal. That appeal will not go through CAS, as correctly reported, but would go to another panel. Sections W through to Z of the Premier League rulebook detail different types of appeals and tribunals for varying reasons. Section W is the section specifically referred to in the PSR rules (within section E of the Premier League handbook).

There is no Time Bar though in the Premier League

Well, kind of. There is no time bar specifically mentioned in the rules. The Premier League handbook, which you can read at https://www.premierleague.com/about/publications,does  state (Rule A7) that “these Rules shall be governed by and shall be construed in accordance with English law. Strictly without prejudice to the arbitration and other dispute resolution provisions of these Rules, disputes relating to these Rules shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.”. 

Essentially this means that any rules follow English Law, which itself does state a time bar for cases. This is typically 6 years for most cases, with some differences based on specific situations.

In the case of fraud this can vary, and may be the avenue that the Premier League tries to go down (which itself makes the evidence required to prove the case more stringent). For fraud cases, English Law states:

Time bar of 6 years from the date cause of action accrued

Or, if the cause of action is deliberately concealed, 6 years from when the fraud is, or with reasonable diligence would have been, discovered.

Should this be the route the Premier League has chosen then there will have to be a discussion to determine what period of time the charges can be applied to.

What about the length of grass?

There was never a charge about the length of grass. Such narrative about what the charges were came from initial analysis by people using incorrect versions of the Premier League handbook (as the rules change from year to year slightly, and those rules shift in their assignment. This is is why I have grouped them as such in the above tables). All charges relate to financial issues and non-cooperation in the league's subsequent investigation.

What about the Cease and Desist?

Rumours began last week that the club had issued cease and desist letters to individuals and organisations within the public domain related to the charges. As of yet there has been no evidence that anybody has received such a letter (although you’d question why they would publicise receiving one in the first place). It should be made clear that any cease and desist that may have been received by anybody would not prevent them from discussing the charges with which the league have brought on City. Any cease and desist letter is a demand that the recipient stops any activity considered to be unlawful - eg. in the case of this case it would be accusations levelled at the club that are not true. Examples would be the club being called cheats because they’ve done specific things that have not been proven to be true like a false statement or libel.

Can’t we just dock points now like Everton and Nottingham Forest?

Not really, no. Cases of this magnitude take time to deliberate and cross examine. There is no quick way of dealing with such a large case. The Everton and Nottingham Forest cases, by comparison, are simple breaches that can be quantified by simply looking at the submitted accounts, which for both clubs show losses that are above the agreed amount in Rule E53 of the Premier League handbook (and Rule E54 in Nottingham Forest’s case due to their recent promotion that reduced their allowable losses). 

Neither club claimed to have not breached these rules, but merely tried to argue the case that their losses were due to mitigating circumstances, which the Premier League did not agree with. 

Anybody questioning why analysis of so many historical charges takes longer than clear individual breaches shown on a balance sheet needs to consider whether they want a case to be resolved quickly, or whether they want it to be resolved properly, as the two are mutually exclusive. 

Who wins?

Ultimately nobody wins. Reputational damage is guaranteed for either Manchester City or the Premier League depending on the outcome. It can also be argued that enough reputational damage has already been dealt to both organisations. This is often why a settlement is seen as a preferred option, as there is no long drawn out saga. The club have remained steadfast and stubborn insisting that there is no grounds for the charges and that they are innocent on all accounts. The league have been criticised for their handling of the matter and for other PSR breaches recently and don’t seem to be keen to back down in this case either.

There was also the accusation that the league had rushed through presenting the charges in order to disrupt the introduction of an independent regulator by the Government and to prove that it can govern itself. That has largely failed as the IFR (Independent football regulator) looks likely to be going ahead. 

The best case scenario for the club is being cleared of all charges - unlikely due to the presence of those non-cooperation charges - a win for the club, but there will be large question marks over the Premier League’s handling, the time taken, the accuracy of the verdict and the secrecy involved. The club will also have suffered reputational damage up to this point, particularly from sections of the football fraternity who have already made their mind up.

The best case scenario for the league is trickier - it doesn’t want to be seen to be a light touch, but conversely it doesn’t want to be triggering the sort of chaos that points deductions and league expulsions might have on one of its most successful clubs of the last decade. In some ways, the league has already lost.

Closing Thoughts

There will be details that I have glossed over for brevity - there is a lot more information in some of the linked documents plus the Premier League handbooks that provides a lot more important context. 

I hope the above proves useful to anybody interested in the finer details of the situation, but appreciate that it is probably beyond the scope of the kind of person who posts 115 memes and gets agitated by the lack of discussion around the charges.

There may be inaccuracies. If you spot anything then please let me know and I will make a quick amendment.

TL;DR

Shits complicated Bro