To cheat, trick, deceive, delude with false pretences; to swindle, hoodwink, con.
Is that not the Oxford definition of “sham”?
The independent commission’s Tuesday ruling slaps Manchester City with every charge tied to serious financial breaches, and all but one for failing to cooperate.
The 40‑page dossier reads like a thriller.
It shows Abu Dhabi United Group realised as early as 2009‑10 that reaching their lofty ambitions would demand massive overspends.
According to the verdict, City repeatedly inflated sponsorship receipts year after year.
For nine consecutive seasons, in fact.
The report details how owners padded the deals’ value.
The so‑called Disguised Funding Scheme sits at the heart of the Premier League’s charges against City.
That scheme concealed more than £830 million of sponsorship cash, with other tricks masking £90 million in expenses.
Here are the document’s headline findings.
The problem became apparent very quickly for the new owners
City were bought by Abu Dhabi investors in 2008, yet the paper says their dilemma was obvious from the start of 2009‑10.
These new owners wanted more than competitiveness – they craved elite talent and trophies.
That ambition required a flood of cash – and a lot of it.
Losses that season were set to eclipse the then‑record £140 million deficit posted by Chelsea in 2006.
The ruling notes the owners were determined not to break that record.
And that wasn’t all.
They also foresaw hefty losses persisting for at least five more years.
That timing coincided with UEFA and the Premier League tightening financial‑fair‑play rules.
A clear red flag for the club.
The only remedy was to boost commercial income and lean less on owner cash.
In early 2010 City took the first steps toward that extra funding.
They struck sponsorship deals that shattered market norms and far exceeded fair value.
The panel calls it the “disguised funding scheme”.
Here’s how it operated, the ruling explains.
Each deal split into a base fee and a tagged sum.
Sponsors paid the base portion.
Owners footed the tagged amount.
Thus sponsors never covered the full contract value, while owners funded the bulk, freeing cash for player signings.
The document says this “gave a misleading impression to third parties … that commercial revenues were far, far greater than they actually were”.
City also knew they had to stay flexible.
Occasionally the scheme was tweaked to “assist continued concealment” and to “reduce the likelihood of tough questions”.
What does that look like in plain terms?
Sponsor income tallied £949.94 million from 2009‑10 to 2017‑18.
Only £119.25 million of that were genuine base fees.
The remaining £830.69 million were tagged sums paid by the owners.
City reject the allegations, claiming the Premier League misread the contracts.
The panel dismissed that excuse as false.
It called the story “concocted after the fact to obscure the realities of the disguised funding scheme”.
One illustration: plugging an unexpected shortfall in May 2013.
Less than a week before the 2012‑13 fiscal year closed, City realised they were £9.9 million shy of UEFA’s FFP limit.
Within days, without even contacting sponsors, they re‑engineered several agreements, inflating recorded fees to cover bonuses for past events and a U.S. tour.
That move “plugged” the UEFA shortfall.
Football Daily: Premier League confirm Man City guilty of all charges – 5 Live reaction
Back in 2012, City launched “Project Longbow”.
The ruling acknowledges many Longbow strands were legitimate attempts to boost revenue and cut losses.
One strand, however, was not genuine: the Fordham Arrangement.
That pact with a third party named Fordham was, the panel says, “little more than a front”.
Owners’ money was used to let Fordham buy the club’s rights to players’ image values at an inflated price.
It acted as another conduit to hide the true source of funds.
It let the club pretend those inflows were operating income.
The statements wrongly logged £24.5 million as operating income and excluded £49.414 million of expenses.
The panel says the Fordham deal was run with the knowledge and approval of several redacted individuals.
Another tactic shifted costly player and manager contracts off the books.
Payments went through third‑party consultancies, but the owners actually funded them.
Those deals were recorded as consultancy fees, masking the club’s true liabilities.
Three such cases appear, all with redacted names, likely to be released later.
The amounts involved were £8.866 million, £7.4 million and £0.5 million.
By its conduct the club clearly intended to circumvent the Premier League rules.
The club made concerted efforts to stall and frustrate the Premier League investigation.
This damning passage throws the integrity of unnamed City insiders into doubt.
City submitted witness statements or documents from 24 people, most of whom testified at the hearing.
That could become an issue later, as the new Independent Football Regulator can assess directors’ honesty.
No names have been disclosed yet, so the identities remain unknown.
The panel found that several key factual witnesses gave evidence that was false in crucial respects.
It added that some witnesses knowingly supplied untrue statements, acting dishonestly.
The ruling also said City knew its annual accounts “did not provide a true and fair view” and acted recklessly about that fact.
All this, the panel concluded, shows City failed to act “with utmost good faith” and breached its cooperation duties to the Premier League.
Here’s how the accounts from 2009‑10 to 2017‑18 misrepresented the club’s finances:
Sponsorship
Income overstated by over £830 million
Contracts (players and managers)
Wrongly excluded expenses of £8.866 million
Wrongly excluded expenses of £7.4 million
Wrongly excluded expenses of £0.5 million
Fordham Arrangement (image rights):
Wrongly recorded as operating income £24.5 million
Wrongly excluded expenses of £49.414 million
Total misstatement: £920.68 million
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