Premier League confirms Manchester City found guilty of financial breaches

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.In a statement, the Premier League said the independent commission found City arranged ‘sham’ contracts with a number of its commercial partners and others, misrepresenting the true agreement between the parties, to “artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs”.City was also deemed to have filed “misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditor and football regulators” and “was significantly in breach of both the Premier League and Uefa’s spending limits”.The statement adds that during the investigation the club “committed multiple breaches of its duties of co-operation and utmost good faith towards the league”, with the commission concluding that City “made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the PL investigation”.READ MORERegarding the ‘sham’ commercial deals, the independent commission found the club had used the process as part of a disguised funding scheme, with the companies only having to pay some of the relevant sponsorship fees. “The remainder was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), which owned the club.“As part of the scheme, further ‘sham’ arrangements, funded by ADUG, were entered into to enable the club to record lower operating expenses than it actually incurred, as well as a ‘sham’ circular arrangement with Fordham, an entity that purchased the club’s players’ image rights, that was funded by ADUG.”The Premier League said the investigation found the purpose of the scheme was to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce costs, equating to over £900 million during the period investigated.The league said now the charges have been proven, sanctions will be addressed separately in a further hearing with the commission.The club has until Friday, October 2nd to appeal the findings.