Manchester City were top of the Premier League when the international break ended, and they have been found guilty of 114 of the 115 charges the league brought against them over its financial rules. The club lodged its appeal at 7pm on Thursday 1 October. Nobody outside the process can say when a sanction will arrive, and the first match of the post-verdict era is at Liverpool on Sunday.

This is a guide to what the commission found, what City will argue, the dates that matter, the punishments on the table and why a Prime Minister’s remarks have unsettled other clubs. More in our football coverage.

What the commission found

The Premier League announced the verdict on Tuesday 29 September. A three-member independent commission found City guilty of all charges relating to breaches of the league’s financial rules across nine seasons, from 2009-10 to 2017-18, and of three of the four charges about failing to co-operate with the investigation.

The core finding is about sponsorship money. The commission concluded that City arranged “sham contracts” with commercial partners to disguise secret funding of more than £830m, according to BBC Sport. The league’s own description, as reported by Reuters and AP, is a scheme that inflated revenue and understated costs by more than £900m over nearly a decade.

The numbers behind that are specific. The commission found that sponsors in Abu Dhabi paid only £119.25m of the £949.94m stated in City’s accounts. The remaining £830.69m came from Abu Dhabi United Group, the private company of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who bought the club in 2008.

• Verdict: guilty on 114 of 115 charges, published 29 September 2026
• Period covered: the 2009-10 to 2017-18 seasons
• Funding the commission traced to the owners’ company: £830.69m of £949.94m in stated sponsorship
• Appeal lodged: 7pm, Thursday 1 October

What City say, and why the appeal is hard

City’s statement is blunt. The club says the commission’s opinion “contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact and is unsafe”, and that “a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its positions”. Chief executive Ferran Soriano went further in an internal video obtained by Sky News: “The whole Premier League case against us is based on a single false accusation: that the owner’s personal money was somehow and secretly put into the club via some sponsors from Abu Dhabi. This is just not true.”

City’s argument is that the extra money came from the Abu Dhabi government, which owned the sponsors, and not from the club’s owners. The commission rejected that as untrue, concluding it was “concocted well after the event”. The Independent’s Miguel Delaney, in an analysis of the appeal, adds a second obstacle: the commission also found that City and its Abu Dhabi-owned sponsors were “related parties”, so even government money would still have broken the rules.

There is a third problem. BBC Sport says City’s defence may be undermined by what Etihad Airways told the US government in 2015: “The assertion that the Abu Dhabi government paid for Etihad’s sponsorship of English Premier League football club Manchester City is false.” Etihad now says it is considering legal action against the Premier League and “categorically rejects any finding, conclusion or implication that suggests the airline has ever been involved in improper commercial arrangements”.

The process itself narrows City’s room. The appeal board, a new panel of three that includes a judge, will review the commission’s decision but will not conduct a full rehearing. It can dismiss the appeal, allow it, send the case back to the commission or alter a sanction. The Premier League’s statement on the appeal says the hearing will stay private until publication of the outcome is permitted.

The calendar: when answers could come

Premier League rules say an appeal hearing should finish within 12 weeks of the appeal being lodged, with a decision due within 30 days of the hearing ending. BBC Sport counts 12 weeks from the Thursday filing as 24 December, while ESPN puts it at 25 December. BBC also notes that the regulation was only added to the rule book this summer and that the timeframe can be disapplied, so the dates are guides, not guarantees.

Forecasts differ. ESPN’s Mark Ogden, in a piece on what happens next for City, reports that after a two-week Christmas shutdown the appeal verdict could land by 8 February on one scenario, with sources expecting a final verdict and sanctions by mid-February at the latest. The Independent’s sources point to an appeal decision between January and March, possibly followed by arbitration, and a sanctions ruling that could come as early as the end of November.

The order of events is also unsettled. BBC Sport says precedent suggests sanctions are imposed only after the appeal decision, but that this is not guaranteed. And the sanctions themselves can be appealed. On ESPN’s arithmetic, if sanctions came on 8 February, an appeal that ran the full 12 weeks would end on 17 May, 13 days before the league season finishes on 30 May, and the panel’s ruling could arrive as late as 17 June. The league declined to tell ESPN whether a sanction issued then would apply to 2026-27 or 2027-28.

What punishments are on the table

The league lists the options as a reprimand, a fine, a suspension, a points deduction or, at the extreme, expulsion. No club has ever been expelled from English football’s top flight. The commission decides the sanction, not the other 19 clubs, but ESPN reports that an expulsion would need at least 15 of the 20 member clubs to vote in favour.

Some of ESPN’s figures come from unnamed sources, and they are worth reading that way. Sources told ESPN a fine could be as high as £500m, and ESPN puts the points deduction needed to guarantee relegation at no fewer than 60. Club sources in the Premier League and the EFL told ESPN they expect City to be outside the top division if guilt is upheld. The EFL’s 72 clubs hold a planned summit on 22 October, and an EFL Championship source told ESPN that “having City in the EFL will be a big topic of conversation”.

There is a strand of restraint too. BBC Sport has been told there is little appetite within the league or its clubs for past titles to be taken away. Coventry manager Frank Lampard, who played for City in 2014-15, said: “I have titles and I don’t have my titles hanging on my wall at home, I have them in my head.”

Recent precedent cuts both ways. Everton’s 10-point deduction was reduced to six on appeal in February 2024, while Nottingham Forest (May 2024) and Leicester City (April 2026) both failed to overturn theirs, ESPN notes. Nottingham Forest manager Oliver Glasner said: “my wish is just that this is quick.”

The Burnham row

The political story began on Wednesday 30 September, when Prime Minister Andy Burnham told the BBC he would be “really concerned” if City’s owners sold up. “They’ve been such a huge partner in the building of modern Manchester and obviously the building of Manchester City into the global force that it is,” he said, as BBC Sport reported on Thursday. Burnham was Greater Manchester’s mayor for nine years before becoming Prime Minister this summer, and is an Everton season-ticket holder. He also repeated his view that Everton “weren’t fairly treated” in their own points case.

Downing Street then clarified that nobody is “above the rules”. Its statement was amended after criticism of the word “if”, which was changed to “wherever”. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has demanded that No 10 release details of the Prime Minister’s meetings with senior figures at the club.

BBC Sport now reports that some Premier League clubs were “astonished” and are “concerned” about political interference in the appeal. One senior club source called the comments “at best naive and at worst quite manipulative, and that is not a good look”. Another source said the scrutiny on Burnham makes interference impossible in practice.

Burnham’s reply on Thursday: “No I haven’t downplayed the seriousness of the findings. They are findings that need to be considered with great care and seriousness and then the process that considers them needs to be fully independent.”

Where India comes in

India’s link to City’s parent group is now a former one. The City Football Group took a 65% stake in Mumbai City FC in November 2019, with actor Ranbir Kapoor and businessman Bimal Parekh holding the other 35%, the Times of India reported. In December 2025 the same paper reported that Mumbai City’s parent company had agreed to buy CFG’s shares back, as Indian football stood still after the AIFF’s commercial agreement with its partner ended.

Under CFG ownership, Mumbai City won the ISL Shield and the ISL trophy twice, the Times of India reported. The club’s history is on Wikipedia, and the group’s other holdings are on its own page.

The charges were brought against Manchester City Football Club, for seasons that ended before CFG arrived in India. Elsewhere in football this week we reported on Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal suspension, which a legal expert says could be cut to 15 days, and on Lionel Messi’s Argentina farewell. City’s case is the one whose calendar could run as far as June.

Sunday at Anfield

City’s international players returned to training on Thursday, nine days after the league published its report. Manager Enzo Maresca, who replaced Pep Guardiola, said: “The feeling is fantastic, to be honest.” He added that the players “know that the noise is there, but they don’t care too much about the noise” and are focused on beating Liverpool “together with the fans”.

Erling Haaland, the league’s leading scorer this season with five goals, told Sky Sports: “We have to stick together. We have to stay with each other and stay positive.”

City are looking for a sixth straight league win. The week after Anfield brings Paris Saint-Germain, a match BBC Sport says Guardiola is set to attend. The nearest hard date, though, is Sunday: Liverpool v Manchester City kicks off at 4.30pm BST, which is 9pm in India. The EFL’s 72 clubs then meet on 22 October.

Sources: BBC Sport, ESPN, Al Jazeera (Reuters and AP), The Independent, Premier League, Manchester City, Times of India.

Featured image: Etihad Stadium, Manchester City Football Club. Photo: Ank kumar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.