How serious can a breach of arcane financial regulations be, really? Just how damning can accountancy be? Even after Friday’s revelation that Manchester City had been found guilty of all but one of the charges brought against them by the Premier League, it was perhaps difficult to grasp the scale of what that meant.
After the publication of the independent commission’s findings, there can be no doubt: the commission found that Manchester City cheated, that they did so deliberately, and that they have sought to cover that up with a campaign of calculated misinformation. City continue to maintain their innocence and issued a statement insisting that “the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe”. It referred, once again, to “a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of all of its positions”, and, again, insisted that “the club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis that the Premier League Board and Executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator, free from partisan influence”.
The chief executive, Ferran Soriano, released a video reiterating many of the same points and vowing that the club would appeal – it has until Friday to do so – and pursue “all other legal avenues” to prove its innocence. He dismissed the Premier League’s charges as “a conspiracy theory” – and pointedly referred to the independent commission as a “Premier League Commission” – claiming that they were based on “a single false accusation” of diverting funds from the owner to the club under the guise of sponsorship payments. This, he said, “could not happen and … did not happen”.
The commission’s view, it’s fair to say, is very different. Any sanction will be addressed separately in a further hearing with the independent commission, but it is impossible to read the verdict without thinking that it will have to be extremely severe. Everton were docked a total of eight points over two accounting windows for an inadvertent breach of profitability and sustainability rules amounting to around £20m, having cooperated with the investigation.
Exactly what City’s breach would turn out to be remains to be calculated, but the verdict found that they overstated income by around £855m and understated outgoings by around £66m. And this was not a cock-up but a calculated attempt to circumvent the rules. The verdict makes for astonishing reading.
The reputation and integrity of the Abu Dhabi United Group, the 81% majority owner of City, lies in tatters, shredded in careful, measured legal prose. The appendices, as and when they are made public, might make it even worse. Even if some technicality is found that mitigates the punishment, their standing cannot surely recover.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
