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The intricate web Man City spun to con the Premier League - Published "To cheat, trick, deceive, delude with false pretences; to impose upon, take in, hoax." That is the Oxford English definition of the word "sham". And that word appears eight times in the independent commission's ruling published on Tuesday, which found Manchester City guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of financial rules, and all but one in relation to a failure to co-operate with the investigation. The 40-page document makes fascinating reading. It catalogues how the club's owners, Abu Dhabi United Group, knew from the 2009-10 season that there would be major overspends if the club was to reach the level they wanted to get to. So, the ruling says, City found a way to boost sponsorship income. Season, after season, after season. For nine seasons, in fact. The report shows how the club's owners were topping up the value of the deals. The so-called Disguised Funding Scheme is the central plank in a series of charges that Manchester City have been found guilty of by the Premier League. This scheme managed to hide more than £830m of sponsorship funding, while other devices hid £90m in expenses. We break down the key findings from the document. The problem became apparent very quickly for the new owners Manchester City were bought by Abu Dhabi investors in 2008 but, the document says, their predicament had become clear from the start of the 2009-10 season. These were ambitious new owners who did not just want the club to be competitive. They wanted to have the best players and be winners. That was not going to be possible without spending more money. And lots of it. Total losses for the 2009-10 campaign were going to exceed what was, at that time, the record single-season financial loss by a Premier League member club. That was Chelsea FC in 2006, of £140m. According to the ruling, that was a record that the City owners were adamant the club should not break And not only that. The club knew they would likely continue to suffer large losses for at least the following five seasons. This was when both Uefa and the Premier League were about to bring in financial fair play rules. This was clearly going to be a problem. To address this the only option was to significantly increase commercial revenue - and reduce the reliance on their owners. Sham contracts and the disguised funding scheme In early 2010, Manchester City took the first steps to get the additional funding into the club. City would enter into sponsorship agreements which were record amounts and were significantly above fair market value. It is referred to as the 'disguised funding scheme'. This is how it worked, according to the ruling. The sponsorship deals were split into two parts: a base fee, and a tagged sum. The sponsors would pay the base fee. And the club's owners would pay the tagged sum. Ergo, the sponsors would not have to pay the full value of the contract. The club's owners would pay the vast majority, which enabled them to invest in players. This, the document states, "gave the misleading impression to third parties (including regulators and its auditors) in its financial statements and any required FFP returns that its commercial revenues from sponsorship agreements were far, far greater than was in fact the case". But the club also knew they had to be nimble. From time to time the disguised funding scheme would be tweaked to "assist with continued concealment" and "reduce the likelihood of difficult questions being asked". What did this all mean in reality? Commercial income from sponsors totalled £949.94m in the seasons from 2009-10 to 2017-18. The ruling says only £119.25 million represented base fees. A total of £830.69 million represented tagged sums - the amount paid by the club's owners. Man City have denied the claims and say the Premier League had misunderstood the sponsorship agreements. However, the panel said it "rejected that explanation as untrue". It said it was "concocted well after the event in an attempt to obscure and conceal the realities of the disguised funding scheme". An example given of the disguised funding scheme in action: plugging an unexpected shortfall in May 2013. Less than a week before the end of that 2012-13 financial year the club knew they were £9.9m short of complying with Uefa's financial rules. In a matter of days, without sponsors even being approached, a number of modified sponsor agreements were generated which increased recorded sponsorship fees to pay bonuses for events that had already taken place and to pay for a US tour. The feared Uefa FFP shortfall was thus "plugged". Project Longbow In 2012, City launched what it called Project Longbow. The ruling does say many of the strands of Project Longbow were genuine, and legitimate attempts to achieve the aims of boostings revenues and reducing operating losses. One strand was not genuine, according to the ruling: the Fordham Arrangement. This was an agreement between City and a third party called Fordham which was, according to the ruling, "little more than a front". Funds from the club's owners "would be used (and were used) to enable Fordham to acquire from the club (at a sizeable, artificially-inflated price) the club's entitlement to benefit financially from its players' image rights". It was a "further device by which funds could be paid into the club in a manner that concealed their true origin". And this "enabled the club to pretend that such funds represented operating income". In the financial statements wrongly recorded as operating income was the sum of £24.5m, and £49.414m was wrongly excluded from operating expenses. The ruling says said the Fordham Arrangement was "operated with the knowledge and approval" of a number of individuals whose names were redacted. Contracts paid by other means Another way the club attempted to pass the financial rules was to move expensive contracts for players and managers off the books. This was done by paying remuneration, or wages, through third parties. In reality this was being paid by the owners. This was "instead recorded in a consultancy agreement" and "concealed the true extent of the club's liabilities". There are three separate cases attributed to this, with all names redacted from the document. These may be published when the full written reasons are released. City used this method for payments of £8.866m, £7.4m and £0.5m. City's witnesses 'lied knowingly' during inquiry "By its conduct the club clearly intended to circumvent the Premier League rules. "The club made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the Premier League investigation". This is another damning section, which brings into question the integrity of undisclosed people associated with City. City served witness statements or documentary evidence from 24 individuals, most of whom who gave evidence at the hearing. This could be problematic at a later date, as the new Independent Football Regulator is able to look at the honesty of integrity of directors and owners. At present, no one has been named so we do not know the position of the people the ruling referred to. It said that the evidence given by a number of important factual witnesses "was false in a number of key respects". It added that certain factual witnesses provided evidence "that they knew to be untrue and so had been dishonest". The ruling also said that City knew that the annual accounts "did not provide a true and fair view of the financial position" and that the club "was reckless as to whether those annual accounts provided a true and fair view". All in this, it was said, showed that City failed to act "with utmost good faith" and "breached duties of co-operation that it owed to the Premier League". How the ruling breaks down This is how the club's financial statements for the seasons between 2009-10 and 2017-18 did not show a true and fair view of the financial position: Sponsorship - Income from overstated by over £830m Contracts and image rights - Wrongly excluded expenses by £8.866m - Wrongly excluded expenses by £7.4m - Wrongly excluded expenses by £0.5m Fordham Arrangement: - Wrongly recorded as operating income £24.5m - Wrongly excluded expenses totalling £49.414m Total: £920.68m Follow Manchester City on BBC Sounds Pre-match, post-match and topical City content Subscribe and listen for everything you love about City
document fetched 2026-09-30 03:01 · canonical https://bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c65y51l3gzq4o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss