It all started in December 2018. As the Premier League explained in its statement, the investigation into Manchester City began at that time… but goes back virtually the entire previous decade. The reason for launching the investigation was the revelations of “Football Leaks”, which shocked the world of football.
In November 2018, for a week the German newspaper “De Spiegel” wrote that the shareholder and owner of Manchester City, Sheikh Mansour (a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi and also the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates) had secretly increased the income of the English club through “inflated agreements” with the sponsors of the Emirates. As “Der Spiegel” explained, all the sponsors had a close connection with the government of the Emirates.
In addition, this April, “Der Spiegel” published that “the company behind Manchester City appears to have broken the rules by paying millions to players’ agents and also orchestrating a secret triangular deal to sign an underage player.”
As reported by “The Athletic”, in an analysis published now, Mansour’s idea was for “Manchester City to spend without limit and exceed the UEFA limit on losses allowed between 2012 and 2016”.
In addition to sponsorships, expenses were also hidden, such as the salary of the then coach of the club, the Italian Roberto Mancini, as well as the payment of image rights for the footballers.
Manchester City’s reaction was swift at the time. They denounced that the documents were obtained “criminally”. The Manchester team has always denied having acted illegally and “has stated that the attacks are part of a deliberate attempt to damage City’s reputation”, details “The Athletic”.
Among the documents revealed by the journalistic investigation of “Football Leaks”, “Der Spiegel” discovered that the Italian coach, Roberto Mancini, had received payments through a fictitious employment contract as a consultant for the Al Jazeera club. This contract meant an income of 1.9 million euros, in addition to the 1.6 million that was the basic salary of the City coach.
But this is by no means the first time Manchester City have been under suspicion. In February 2020, UEFA sanctioned the club with a two-year exclusion from European competitions for violating “Financial Fair Play”, due to irregularities with sponsorship income. In addition, “Cityzens” received a fine of 30 million euros.
UEFA’s Club Financial Supervisory Authority found Manchester City guilty of misrepresenting accounts to the tune of more than £200m and failing to co-operate with European football’s financial watchdog.
The case dragged on for several months, until the European Court of Arbitration decided in July 2020 to lift the sanction and reduce the fine to less than 10 million euros, despite the fact that nine Premier League clubs, including names such as Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur asked the court not to surrender.
“This decision is a disaster and a shame for football,” said then Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho. “It’s not good for the sport,” added Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp.
