Man City plans to fight unprecedented guilty verdict

Manchester City have been found guilty of the vast majority of the 115 charges of alleged financial wrongdoing they faced, the Premier League confirmed yesterday, in one of the biggest scandals in English football history.

City, the dominant force in English football over the past 15 years and the current Premier League leaders, now face severe sanctions that could include a substantial points deduction or even expulsion from the world’s most popular football league, dealing a major blow to the club’s Abu Dhabi ownership.

The verdict by an independent commission, first reported by several British media outlets on Friday, “details how the club systematically broke Premier League rules for nearly a decade”, Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said. The case was initiated more than three years ago and stemmed from leaked club emails and documents that emerged in 2018.