Manchester City Found Guilty on Almost Every Charge, and Nobody Has Named a Penalty

Manchester City have been found guilty of breaking the majority of the 115 financial rules they were accused of breaching, BBC Sport reported, citing sources. The broadcaster's 5 Live coverage and Ethiopia's Fana Television both put the number at 114 of 115.

Fana reported that the charges covered the nine years from 2009 to 2018 and related to the club's presentation of financial information, its sponsorship income, and payments to players and coaches.

A verdict without a sentence

What has not happened is as important as what has. There has been no official statement from the Premier League. No sanction has been set out. The finding has reached the public through sources rather than through a published judgement, more than two years after the case began.

That gap is where the money now sits. The football finance analyst Kieran Maguire told BBC Sport the potential sanctions would be "significant". Christian Purslow, a former top club executive, warned that City's legal fight with the Premier League has the potential to "spiral out of control" — a fight, not a conclusion, which is the reading most people close to the case appear to share.

Not everyone accepts the finding. Rodri, who won three titles at the club, said he believes City are innocent and will trust them unless they are proved otherwise.

Why this travels

A league punishing its most successful member for how it accounted for sponsorship income is a governance story before it is a sports one. Every league that sells its competition abroad — and the Premier League's Ethiopian audience is among the largest outside Europe — is selling the premise that the table reflects the football. This case tests whether that premise survives contact with the accounts.

Open

The sanction is unknown, as is the timetable for announcing it and the route of any appeal. The Premier League has not confirmed the verdict, and City have not responded publicly to it.

Sources: BBC Sport, 25 September 2026, BBC Sport, 26 September 2026, BBC Sport, 25 September 2026, BBC Sport, 26 September 2026, Fana Television, 25 September 2026