Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Manchester City have been found guilty of all charges related to breaches of Premier League financial rules between 2009-10 and 2017-18 by an independent commission, the league has said.
The Premier League said the independent commission found City arranged ‘sham’ commercial deals with a number of its sponsors during the period, which were part of a disguised funding scheme, whereby those companies were only required to pay a portion of the relevant sponsorship fees.
The commission found that the remainder was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), which owned the club.
Of 115 charges City were found guilty of all but one, which related to non-cooperation with the Premier League investigation.
The league said that now the charges have been proved, the issue of sanction will be addressed separately in a further hearing with the independent commission.
Richard Masters, the chief executive of the Premier League, called the case and decision “the most significant in Premier League history”.
Further “sham arrangements” the club were found to have entered into enabled the club to record lower operating expenses than they actually incurred, the Premier League’s published statement said.
The scheme was found to have inflated the club’s revenues and reduced their costs by more than £900 million ($A1.7 billion) during the affected period.
The commission found the club had therefore filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators.
The commission concluded that “by its conduct the club clearly intended to circumvent the Premier League rules.”
Manchester City said they were “disappointed and surprised” and will now pursue an appeal “on the basis that the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe.”
The commission found that had information been accurately reported, the club would have been in breach of Premier League and UEFA spending limits “by a very large amount”.
The club were also found to have committed multiple breaches of their duty to co-operate with the investigation, and tried to “stop and frustrate” the Premier League’s investigation, which began in 2018.
Masters said: “The core decision establishes the facts of what happened at Manchester City during this period. It details how the club systematically broke Premier League rules for nearly a decade.
“It also vindicates the Premier League’s decision to pursue this case against Manchester City. While the process to date has been both long and difficult, the league has remained determined that the facts be established independently.
Masters added: “This disciplinary case, and this decision, are the most significant in Premier League history.”
