{"id":46868,"date":"2026-09-30T09:32:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T07:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=46868"},"modified":"2026-09-30T09:45:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T07:45:21","slug":"man-city-guilty-of-using-sham-deals-to-distort-finances-premier-league","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/man-city-guilty-of-using-sham-deals-to-distort-finances-premier-league\/","title":{"rendered":"Man City guilty of using &#8216;sham&#8217; deals to distort finances: Premier League"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Manchester City used &#8220;sham&#8221; commercial contracts as part of schemes to inflate revenue and understate costs by more than $1.19 billion over nearly a decade, the Premier League said on Tuesday after an independent commission ruled the club guilty of serious breaches of \u200bfinancial rules.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The commission found City guilty of all charges relating to breaches of the league&#8217;s financial rules over nine seasons, between the 2009 to 2010 and 2017 to 2018 campaigns, as well as \u200cthree of four charges concerning their failure to co-operate with the investigation.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The club, which denies wrongdoing, said in a statement it would appeal &#8220;on the basis that the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe&#8221;.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>No sanction has yet been imposed, leaving unresolved the potential consequences for a club that has dominated English football over the past decade.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>A significant punishment could affect past and future title races, European qualification and the distribution of tens of millions of pounds in prize money. \u200b<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The case has also raised wider questions about financial governance, competitive integrity and the Premier League&#8217;s ability to hold its most powerful clubs to account.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":20928,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-46868","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Manchester City used \"sham\" commercial contracts as part of schemes","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/46868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/46868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46869,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/46868\/revisions\/46869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=46868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}