Over three years have passed since the Premier League announced it was charging Manchester City for breaching a long list of rules related to alleged wrongdoing. Most of them relate to actions taken to circumvent financial regulation, from false accounting to making payments off the books to failing to cooperate with investigators. City deny the charges.
Depending on the number of charges on which they are found guilty (if any) City could face a range of sanctions, from fines and points deductions to being stripped of titles to outright expulsion from the Premier League. If they’re found guilty — depending on the nature and number of the charges — they also run the risk of having to pay damages but via the league’s arbitration process as other clubs could seek compensation for lost revenue. A three-person independent panel is tasked with issuing a verdict.
“While the complexity of the Manchester City case is undeniable — and unique in a sporting context — similar commercial cases have reached decisions in far less time than the 15 months we’ve seen here,” Stefan Borson, Head of Sport at law firm McCarthy Denning, tells ESPN. “There are few legitimate excuses, and there is an urgent need for progress.”
Let’s start with the obvious: Why is this taking so long?
To some degree, we can only speculate because the whole process is shrouded in secrecy. This is partly due to the fact that the Premier League’s own rules allow defendants to request confidential hearings, and partly due to British law and safeguards that protect defendants in certain situations.
One example illustrates this well. The investigation into City began in Dec. 2018 following the publication of the “Football Leaks” documents by the German magazine “Der Spiegel.” But we only found out that there even was an investigation in March 2021 after a High Court judgement ruled against City, who had tried to block investigators’ access to documents. The start date of the investigation was later confirmed in official documents, but there wasn’t even confirmation from the Premier League that City were even under scrutiny.
It’s a similar story with the hearings themselves, which are confidential and held in private. We know they started on Sept. 16, 2024 at the International Dispute Resolution Centre in London because this was leaked, and media photographed lawyers for both sides arriving and leaving the venue. We know the hearing concluded in Dec. 2024 because Manchester City mentions it in their 2024-25 Annual Report and because, in February 2025, Pep Guardiola, the City coach, said the verdict would come out “in one month.”
One month? Wow, it’s been 12 months and counting…
Yes, and that tells you the degree to which everybody’s lips have been sealed in this process. There is so little that we know about it, other than the charges. For example, we don’t even know for certain the identity of the three members of the Independent Commission that will sit in judgement. The trio was assembled by Murray Rosen, Chair of the Premier League’s Judicial Panel at the time. Some reports suggest Rosen named himself to the panel, but that is unconfirmed.
Anyway, if the hearing concluded in Dec. 2024, why it is taking so long for the panel to issue a verdict?
Correct.
We’re in the realm of speculation here, but there are several reasons cited by sports lawyers.
The first is that this is a massive, hugely complicated case. We’re not even certain of the exact number of charges. It came to be known as the “115 charges” case because that’s the number of bullet points in the original document, but according to multiple reports, the number of individual rule breaches in the document is 130, though it’s possible that some are overlapping (i.e. one action violates multiple rules).
It’s also possible, as some reports have suggested, that since the original document was issued more charges were added, most likely relating to failure to cooperate. Whatever the number, each of the charges must be proven individually with specific evidence.
Furthermore, many of the charges in practice allege deliberate intent to mislead regulators and/or obstruct investigators. The panel isn’t just deciding whether City breached spending regulations, but whether they intentionally breached them and then covered it up to violate the spirit of the rules and, later, knowingly withholding evidence. To make an analogy, it’s the difference between speeding on the highway and speeding on the highway while remotely manipulating the police officer’s radar gun and then spewing a bunch of sovereign citizen nonsense to intentionally screw up your traffic stop. The burden of proof is far higher in the latter case.
Bear in mind that the panel won’t just be issuing a verdict and a sentence. They will be issuing what are known as “written reasons” detailing how they arrived at their conclusions. These “written reasons” could form the basis of any appeal — whether by City or by the Premier League — and therefore need to be “bullet-proof” when it comes to scrutiny.
Still… They’ve had more than a year to issue a verdict since the hearing concluded in Dec. 2024 and, presumably, they have staff to help them…
That’s where another factor comes in. It’s highly likely that the panel members aren’t working on this full-time. You’d assume all three have day jobs and other commitments; presumably, the panel allocated a certain amount of time to hear and deliberate on the case, but it proved to be far more complex than anticipated, and so they’ve had to work around their calendars, finding time as and when.
“The members of the Independent commission have undoubtedly had other commitments since the hearing ended and they will be acutely aware of making the decision as robust against appeal as possible, given the unprecedented scrutiny this ruling will attract,” said Borson.
Why wouldn’t more time have been allocated to the deliberations?
That’s another mystery. I guess if you want top-notch legal and financial experts to deliberate, you have to accept that they will be in demand elsewhere. This isn’t a jury that’s being sequestered in a room; these are senior figures who handle very important cases in their everyday lives. They can’t just check out indefinitely.
There’s another potential explanation here. While it’s a remote possibility, it would help explain a number of the mysteries surrounding this case.
What’s that?
What if, separate from the arbitration proceedings, the Premier League and City aren’t trying to hammer out some sort of settlement deal? After all, the Premier League is nothing more than its 20 member clubs. If they all agree on an outcome, that’s that. Now, I think it’s unlikely, partly because clubs are notoriously leaky (and there hasn’t been a peep) and partly because it would be extremely difficult to agree something all sides could accept.
What might it look like? City would need to admit to some level of wrongdoing and take some level of punishment, while rival clubs would need to drop threats of legal action to recover damages.
How would one even do this? Maybe by dumping the blame on the people running the club and arguing that City’s owners were entirely unaware and were, in fact, duped by the folks they employed. And then negotiating a sanction severe enough — massive fine? Some vacated titles? — that the “victim clubs” accept it, but not so severe that it ruins City’s chance of being competitive in the medium-term. Why? Because otherwise, they’re not going to accept it and will take their chances with the commission and, possibly, the appeal.”
Again, I think it’s highly unlikely, but it would explain why deliberations are taking so long. And it would give the Premier League closure and allow it to move on. Because even when the verdict does come in, it’s highly likely that the losing side will appeal. And this will only drag the process out further, which is not good for the Premier League.
