Manchester City with financial violations? There are drastic consequences

English champions Manchester City are to appear before an independent commission over possible breaches of Premier League financial rules. The league announced this on Monday.

According to this, City are accused of violations in every season from 2009 to 2018. The European Football Union (UEFA) had meanwhile excluded City from the European Cup for disregarding financial fair play in the years 2012 to 2016, but the judgment did not stand.

The Daily Mail writes that ManCity is threatened with a point deduction or even a league exclusion due to the new allegations.

Specifically, team manager Pep Guardiola accused the club of breaking the rule of “providing accurate information that gives a true and fair view of the club’s financial position”. This information relates to revenue, including sponsorship revenue and operating expenses. City also refused to cooperate with investigators in a December 2018 investigation into the financial situation.

Other alleged breaches relate to managerial pay disclosures from the 2009/10 to 2012/13 seasons, the tenure of Roberto Mancini, and player pay between 2010/11 and 2015/16. City are said to have breached UEFA regulations including Financial Fair Play from 2013/14 to 2017/18 and Premier League rules on profitability and sustainability from 2015/16 to 2017/18.

Manchester United’s city rivals have been owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group since 2008 and have won six league titles, two FA Cups and six League Cups under new ownership. Success comes at a cost: Since the takeover, the loss in player transfers has been around 1.5 billion euros.