When Sheikh Mansour completed his takeover in September 2008, marking the start of his ownership with the sensational and then-record signing of Robinho from Real Madrid, Manchester City were a club with two top-flight titles in their 114-year history. The last of those titles had come four decades earlier. City had just finished the 2007/08 season in ninth, 32 points behind champions Manchester United, having suffered an 8-1 loss to Middlesbrough in what proved to be Sven-Goran Eriksson's final game in charge.
City had been relegated three times in the Premier League era, dropping as low as the third tier only 10 years earlier. The previous 16 Premier League titles had been shared between Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal. City were not in the picture.
Few could have predicted the extent of the transformation that followed. In the nine-year period covered by the Premier League's investigation, City won three Premier League titles, more than doubling their previous tally. A new superpower had emerged.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player But behind their unprecedented rise, an independent commission has determined there were serious breaches of financial rules. Their findings include "sham" contracts with commercial partners and the artificial inflation of revenues by £830m. Possible sanctions include fines, transfer bans and expulsion from the Premier League.
Some are calling for their honours to be stripped. City deny all wrongdoing and intend to appeal the decision. The "disguised funding scheme", as it is described in the commission's report, involved City's Abu Dhabi United Group owners paying huge sponsorship fees that were recorded as commercial revenue, helping City embark on an unprecedented era of spending.
Between the summer of 2009 and the 2018 January transfer window, the club spent £1.2bn on players, according to Transfermarkt data - nearly £300m more than next-highest spenders Chelsea on £931.7m. City's net spend of £888.2m dwarfed that of next-highest United on £513.1m. The extraordinary extent of their spending can be seen on a year-by-year basis too.
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