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“The process isn’t anywhere near the end,” declares sports law expert Dr Jan Zglinski, reflecting on apparently well-sourced leaks which suggest that Manchester City have been found guilty of 114 breaches of financial regulations by the Premier League. The news, which has rocked English football, calls into question the integrity of several entire seasons at the highest echelon of the English game, but Dr Zglinski – an associate professor at LSE law school – told the Byline Times Podcast he doesn’t expect a swift resolution to an issue which has already been rumbling for the best part of a decade.
Given City’s litigious reputation and the deep pockets of their owner Sheikh Mansour, a member of the United Arab Emirates’ royal family, he said, “I think we need to buckle up and get ready for another couple of months or possibly years of this playing out in front of our eyes.”
The charges are thought to relate to allegations that City manipulated their accounts in order to disguise payments to various employees, including former manager Roberto Mancini; and that they effectively inflated sponsorship deals – all in order to circumvent rules designed to limit club spending.
Zglinski said of the allegations: “It’s really as significant as it gets in the world of football. This wasn't just a marginal breach. This wasn't just a technicality. We have one of the world's foremost, most recognisable football clubs breaching financial rules at a scale that is truly unprecedented. This is not just an isolated breach here and there, it points us towards a pattern of non-compliance, and it will probably also carry some significant sanctions because of that.”
Manchester City has always maintained that it’s done nothing wrong, with chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak releasing a statement on Friday, asserting his “confidence and intent in proving the club’s innocence.” They were previously found guilty in 2020 of similar charges brought by the game’s European governing body UEFA, only for the verdict to be overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) – which nevertheless levied a fine of £9 million against City for non co-operation.
Thanks to the Premier League’s rules, CAS won’t be able to intervene this time and it’s not only football supporters who’ll be keenly awaiting the formal outcome of the investigation – the story also has huge geopolitical ramifications.
There have been reports that UAE officials lobbied former Foreign Secretary David Lammy over the issue in 2024 and warned of adverse consequences if City lost their case. The UAE has invested hundreds of millions of pounds in property development in Manchester, where Prime Minister Andy Burnham was previously Mayor.
Zglinski observes that Abu Dhabi - and Saudi Arabia at Newcastle United via its Public Investment Fund - are the most high profile exponents of ‘sportswashing’ in English football, whereby states with repressive human rights laws seek to burnish their reputation, by associating with much-loved sporting brands. He said: “You want to put money into a sporting competition or a sports club to make yourself look better, to have that photo op with a Premier League trophy. This looks great for a government, for a ruler, for a president.
“But I think what we're increasingly seeing is actually that this is just the first step. There are some real economic interests there as well, because good PR won't carry investment interests for a decade or decade and a half. What you expect ultimately is a return on investment. Real estate deals in Manchester are just one part of it. Manchester City is no longer just Manchester City. It's City Football Group. This corporation owns clubs across the world, has very well-functioning academies in some of the biggest football markets, is making huge amounts of money from the players they're developing, the merchandise they're selling, the broadcasting rights that they're getting in.”
Zglinski sees the long term goal of Manchester City’s and Newcastle’s owners as the pursuit of new income streams in recognition of the fact that their oil and gas revenues will eventually dry up. “They are preparing strategically for that moment by diversifying their portfolio to invest in culture, in sports, in IT, in higher education as well, to be ready for when when the oil money stops, and then still make a pretty penny for their economies.”
To that extent, any ruling by the Premier League that jeopardises City’s standing is likely to cause ructions beyond the world of football because it would damage the ‘brand’ of the UAE.
Zglinski observes that, “the whole country is watching and is expecting a proportionate sanction here. Manchester City have breached the financial fair play rules in unprecedented ways; they should be probably punished in an unprecedented way as well. This is what basic logic would dictate, and this is also what basic law principles would dictate.”
But the Premier League may also be mindful of not unduly damaging its own brand; and may also feel pressure to accommodate the broader diplomatic dimension. Zglinski says, “I don't envy the decision makers in this case.”
Watch Adrian Goldberg’s full interview with Dr Jan Zglinski here on the Byline Times Podcast.
Adrian Goldberg’s book, Where’s the Money Gone? The Battle For The Soul of English Football is available from Byline Books.
The Premier League “brand” might have been better served by not raising this matter in the first place. But now that a club has been clearly shown to be deliberately cheating on a massive scale, anything other than an a massive penalty will destroy the “brand”.
I think we’re talking about expulsion here, either explicitly, or via a points deduction that makes relegation inevitable.