The ruling on Manchester City arrives after the Premier League has changed its system of financial oversight. An independent commission has found serious breaches spanning nine seasons, from 2009/10 to 2017/18, but has yet to decide the sanction. While the case concerns conduct from a period that ended more than eight years ago, the league introduced a model in 2026/27 designed to identify excessive spending and apply sporting sanctions within the same season. The timing brings two sides of financial regulation into focus: investigating past conduct and monitoring the competition as it unfolds.
According to the published findings, City used contracts that did not reflect the underlying agreements to inflate its revenue and reduce its reported costs. Some sums recorded as sponsorship income came from Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd -ADUG-, the club’s owner, while other arrangements allowed it to report costs below their actual level. The combined effect on revenue and costs exceeded £900 million, according to the Premier League. That figure represents the impact of the arrangements examined; it is neither a fine nor an amount overspent on transfers. The commission concluded that accurately reported accounts would have shown substantial breaches of domestic and European financial limits.
The time an investigation takes
The investigation began in December 2018, and the Premier League brought disciplinary charges in February 2023. The hearing took place over 42 days between September and December 2024. In its decision, the commission acknowledges that it took longer than expected to reach its conclusions and describes the scale of the case: the document search covered millions of records, and witness transcripts ran to around 7,000 pages. That volume helps explain the length of the proceedings, although the commission itself regrets the delay. The decision also distinguishes between the conduct of both parties’ representatives during the hearing, which it assesses positively, and the failures to cooperate that it found proven.
The delay has consequences for the competition. By the time breaches from earlier seasons are resolved, league positions, European qualification and financial distributions for those campaigns have already been settled. Sanctioning conduct and deciding how to address its possible effects are separate questions; the published ruling does not redistribute titles or revenue. The findings are also subject to appeal. City maintains its innocence and argues that the decision contains errors of law and fact. Any assessment of the time taken must therefore account for both the need to reach a decision and the club’s right to defend itself, without treating a case of this complexity as equivalent to an ordinary spending breach.
A model focused on squad costs
Clubs approved the new framework in November 2025, before the ruling was published, and it came into force this season. Its central measure is the Squad Cost Ratio -SCR-, which compares spending on the playing squad with football revenue and net profit from player sales. Squad costs include player and head coach wages, agents’ fees and transfer amortisation: the accounting practice of spreading a signing’s cost across the years of the player’s contract. The previous Profitability and Sustainability Rules -PSR- assessed overall financial results across rolling three-year periods. The new system focuses on the resources clubs spend to compete.
The benchmark is 85%, with an initial allowance of a further 30 percentage points before the threshold for sporting sanctions is reached at 115%. That allowance shrinks when a club uses it, preventing the same level of spending from being repeated indefinitely. A club recording a 100% ratio, for example, would use 15 points of the allowance and have a 100% limit the following season. Oversight includes a check in October and an assessment on 1 March, after the winter transfer window. The stated aim is to apply sporting sanctions for exceeding the applicable limit in that same campaign. Financial levies for using the additional allowance will begin to apply to breaches from 2027/28.
Verifying revenue and resolving the case
The City case highlights a further issue: a regulator’s ability to control spending depends on the information it receives. Under a system that links squad expenditure to revenue, overstated income could artificially increase the amount a club is allowed to spend. That follows from how the ratio is calculated; it does not mean the new rules will, by themselves, prevent undisclosed arrangements or inaccurate reporting. In-season checks can identify the relationship between revenue and costs sooner, but establishing where money came from or what a contract actually required may still demand a separate investigation. The reform changes when spending is monitored. It does not remove the need to verify the accounts behind it.
City’s disciplinary case continues separately from the new squad-cost system. The club has until Friday, 2 October, to appeal the findings, and the commission will consider the sanction at a later hearing held in private. Its available measures include fines, points deductions and other sporting penalties; none has yet been determined in this case. The Premier League has published a partially redacted version of the decision and expects to release further material when it can. Replacing the financial rules also preserves its ability to pursue earlier breaches, so the change in system does not close cases concerning past seasons.
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