Updated Tuesday 29 September 2026. This article was first published on 28 September 2026, when the Commission's decision had been reported but not published. It has been updated following the Premier League's publication of the Commission's Core Decision. The opening, the timeline, the section on Abu Dhabi and the recommendations have changed, and there is a new section on what the Commission found. The views expressed are my own.
Three years, seven months and a leak. That is how long it took for English football to hear what many had long suspected. On Friday 25 September, news broke that an independent commission had found Manchester City guilty of almost all of the charges brought by the Premier League. On Tuesday, the Premier League published the Commission's decision. City say the opinion contains "clear material errors, of law, principle and fact", and will appeal. Sanctions will be decided at a separate hearing.
But the feeling in the game was already clear. The charges were made in 2023 and, by now, everyone was close to exhaustion. Knowing how quickly clubs like Everton and Nottingham Forest were dealt with, that exhaustion has turned to anger at what the Commission has now found.
I should declare my interest. I am an Arsenal supporter, and I don't hide it. Those who know me know my allegiances, and they also know I can put them aside when I deliver my own advice and counsel.
Yes, last season, after 22 years, Arsenal finally won the league again, finishing ahead of City. But this is not a story about one club's grievance. It touches every club that competed in the Premier League between 2009 and 2018, and every club that fell through the trapdoor into the Championship while City were building their empire on what the Commission has now found to be inaccurate accounts.
I also want to be fair. Pep Guardiola is one of the finest coaches the game has seen. In ten years he won 20 trophies, including six league titles, four of them in a row, and the club's first Champions League. At Barcelona, he delivered titles. His philosophy transformed squads, and his teams played the beautiful game with intelligence and a bit of bite when needed.
But great coaching needs a great squad and, in my view, that squad should never have been assembled on the financial platform it had after the takeover. That is the uncomfortable truth at the heart of this decision. It also raises a bigger question, one that reaches well beyond the Etihad: what does this do to the reputations of everyone connected with it?
What the Commission found
According to the published decision, the Commission found that City's accounts did not give a true and fair view in any of nine seasons, from 2009/10 to 2017/18, with income overstated by more than £830 million. It found the club devised what it called a "Disguised Funding Scheme" in early 2010, in which funding from its owner, Abu Dhabi United Group, was presented as sponsorship income, and that the scheme helped the club avoid breaking the record for the largest single-season loss in Premier League history.
The Commission found the club knew, or was reckless as to whether, its accounts were accurate, and concluded that it "clearly intended to circumvent" the rules. On the investigation itself, it found "concerted efforts to stop and frustrate" it. It found every charge proven bar one, Charge 4(B), with Charge 4(A) proven in most respects. It also found the scheme went unnoticed for years by regulators and by the club's own auditors. City dispute the findings and will appeal.
A national asset, not just a league
Created in 1992, The Premier League is one of Britain's most successful exports. According to EY's latest analysis, published in August, it is broadcast in 189 countries and claims 1.9 billion followers worldwide. Its broadcast exports reached £1.8 billion in 2024/25, close to the rest of the UK television sector combined. EY forecasts it will generate £33 billion for the UK economy over the three seasons to 2027/28.
Those numbers matter, but the League's value to Britain goes beyond pounds. For millions of people who will never visit Manchester, Liverpool or London, a Saturday afternoon kick-off is their most regular point of contact with this country. The League itself told Parliament it plays a significant role in the UK's soft power, exporting UK values alongside its football.
That is the point. When you export a product built on competition, you also export a promise: that the competition is fair.
That reach has long attracted international money. Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea in 2003. The Glazers took over Manchester United in 2005. In 2007, Thailand's Thaksin Shinawatra bought Manchester City, the same year Stan Kroenke took a stake in Arsenal, which he now fully owns. In 2008, Abu Dhabi United Group bought City, bringing the backing of a Gulf ruling family into English football
Fair play is part of the nation brand
WhWhen you travel the world, for business and pleasure, you notice how Britain sells itself: fairness, the rule of law, great education and institutions you can trust. They are why investors bring disputes to London courts and why capital settles here. The Premier League is, in effect, a weekly global advertisement for those values.
How the Premier League is perceived matters, because how it acts after these findings will affect how the UK is perceived. In Brand Finance's Global Soft Power Index 2026, published before the decision, the UK fell to fourth, its lowest ranking to date, recording the second-steepest drop of any nation. Brand Finance warned that control over the UK's image is increasingly slipping away.
So this decision cuts two ways. It shows that English institutions will, eventually, hold even the most powerful to account. But "eventually" is not a comfortable word for a country whose reputation rests on fair process, especially when so many are demanding that justice is seen to be done.
The cost that trickles down
What the Premier League created is what is known as the Football pyramid. Money made at the top, flows down. Yet, what is not managed within the top clubs affects everyone. The impact of one club not following the rules damages everyone else.
In 2003, when Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea, Arsenal's then vice-chairman David Dein captured the shock in one line: "Roman Abramovich has parked his Russian tanks on our lawn and is firing £50 notes at us." Twenty years later, he updated that statement and said that the new owners, were firing €500 notes.
Because of the increase in popularity in the Premier League in the early 2,000s Arsenal realised that it had to move from Highbury to The Emirates. It financed the stadium through borrowing and not an owner's chequebook. That meant selling before buying. And too often, the buyer was Manchester City. Emmanuel Adebayor and Kolo Touré went in 2009. Gaël Clichy and Samir Nasri followed in 2011. Bacary Sagna joined later. Every one of those moves happened inside the 2009–2018 period the commission has now examined. City's then chief executive, Garry Cook, called it an "accelerated acquisition strategy".
Arsenal were not alone. Every club that finished fourth instead of third, missed out on Europe, or lost players to inflated wages paid a price. Some of those clubs are now in the Championship.
Then compare the treatment of Everton, who lost eight points in 2023/24 for breaching profit and sustainability rules, and Nottingham Forest, who lost four, reduced partly because they admitted the breach early and cooperated. Both cases were resolved within a season. City's case took more than three and a half years from charge to decision, and the Commission found the club made ‘concerted efforts to stop and frustrate’ the investigation.
Abu Dhabi's perception problem
OfCity has always said it is privately owned, and formally that is true. But Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who bought the club through Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008 for a reported £200 million, is also Vice President and Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, and brother of its President. When City won the Champions League in 2023, he described the title as the result of a deliberate strategy developed 15 years earlier.
That strategy worked brilliantly for the UAE's image. In Brand Finance's 2026 index, the UAE held tenth place for a fourth consecutive year, defending or improving its rank on every pillar. That is why this decision matters in Abu Dhabi. The Commission's findings concern the club and its owner, Abu Dhabi United Group, not the UAE state, and I make no suggestion otherwise. But perception does not respect that distinction. In my view, it is hard to build a reputation for sound governance when the club most closely associated with your ruling family has been found by an independent commission to have submitted inaccurate accounts for nine seasons.
A clash of cultures
Underneath the legal detail lies a collision of two operating models.
One is built on relationships, discretion and decisive top-down direction. It has delivered remarkable results in the Gulf. The other is the English model: written rules, independent adjudication, disclosure, and the expectation that even the most powerful submit to process.
In my view, City approached the Premier League as an adversary to be out-argued, not a regulator to be satisfied. The club promised "irrefutable evidence" in 2023 and was sharply critical of the League's investigation, criticism the Commission rejected. On the investigation itself, it found concerted efforts to stop and frustrate it, findings City are appealing. In a system built on disclosure, treating process as the enemy damages perception and reputation far beyond the club.
The LIV Golf lesson
And when you want to buy reach and influence, let’s not just look at Manchester City. Look at gold and how Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund launched LIV Golf in 2022 to disrupt the professional game. Multiple reports estimate it put more than $5 billion into the venture. Yet for what it created, In April this year, PIF announced it would fund LIV only for the remainder of the 2026 season. The tour's original format has since come to an early end, with its future dependent on new, smaller backers.
LIV did change golf. It forced the PGA Tour to rethink prize money and its schedule. But it never won the argument that mattered: legitimacy. From its first event it carried the label of sportswashing, and no volume of spending removed it. And that is a lesson, for legitimacy outside of your home market you have to understand the values that matter to the majority, a lesson that applies directly to Manchester City. Investment can buy players, trophies and attention. But it has seriously failed in buying trust, because that trust comes from how you behave when the rules bind you, and from whether others believe you won fairly. Abu Dhabi's investment in Manchester City delivered extraordinary success on the pitch. The question now is whether the verdict turns that success into a liability off it.
Who else carries the cost?
City's reputation will take the most visible hit, but it will not be the only one.
Look at the timeline. Der Spiegel published the Football Leaks allegations in November 2018. The Premier League brought charges in February 2023, more than four years later. The hearing ended in December 2024. The decision was published on 29 September 2026, days after it leaked. That is nearly eight years from allegation to decision, with sanctions still to come.
There is context. The Commission found the scheme went unnoticed for years by regulators and auditors, described the case as "extremely hard fought on both sides", and called the time it took to produce its own decision "regrettable". UEFA's 2020 attempt to punish City was overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which found some charges time-barred and others not established. But the effect on perception is the same.
Smaller clubs, by contrast, faced swift, in-season punishment for smaller breaches. That contrast matters. A regulator that moves quickly against Everton and Nottingham Forest but takes the best part of a decade over its richest member invites the charge that justice in English football depends on who can afford the lawyers. The League has now published the Core Decision, with the appendices to follow.
Others pay too. Broadcasters and commercial partners profited from City's rise. Those in government who celebrated Gulf investment in English football might, in my view, have asked earlier what came with it. Reputation is shared. When the flagship fails, everyone connected with it pays a price.
What should happen next
For Manchester City: the club is entitled to appeal, and has said it will. But whatever the outcome, every year of appeals keeps these findings attached to its name. In my view, the commercial and reputational case points one way: use the appeal to seek a proportionate outcome, consider settling rival claims collectively rather than one courtroom at a time, accept independent oversight of governance, and stand by today's players and staff. If the findings stand, acknowledge that the club's historic conduct fell short. An asterisk will hang over the titles of that period whatever the sanctions. Defiance was a strategy for the hearing. It is a liability now. Start rebuilding the brand.
For the Premier League: be fast, be clear, be consistent. Publish the appendices in full. Move swiftly to sanctions, as the League has promised. Introduce a transparent sanctions framework, so punishment is predictable rather than negotiated, and commit to timelines measured in months, not years. The League's credibility as a global brand rests on one promise: that the result on the pitch was earned within the rules. Slow justice erodes that promise for every club, not just the guilty one.
For government: recognise that the Premier League's integrity is part of the UK's national brand, and that the Independent Football Regulator's credibility will be judged against cases like this.
For investors in sport, from sovereign funds to private equity: perception is part of the asset. Buying a club, a league or an event buys attention, not legitimacy. Legitimacy is earned by respecting the host culture's rules, especially when they are inconvenient. Build in governance, disclosure and compliance from day one. Engage regulators as partners, not adversaries. And remember that a reputation for playing fair outlasts any trophy won without it.
Perception matters
Football fans have long memories. The titles will stay in the record books, or they will not; that is for the sanctions hearing and the appeal to decide. But the story is already written in the minds of millions who watch the Premier League from San Francisco to Singapore. They will remember a club that won, and a system that took nearly a decade to reach a decision.
That is the real cost of this case. Not the fine, not the points, not even the damages. It is the doubt it plants about English football, and about the country that exports it as a symbol of fair play.
Reputation is strategic capital. Manchester City, Abu Dhabi and the Premier League all spent some of theirs over the past decade. The question now is who acts first to rebuild it.
And maybe, just maybe, when Arsenal held their title parade in May 2026, up to a million people turned out on the streets of north London, not just because it was Arsenal, but because it wasn't Manchester City.