Man City charges: The fallout + what happens next?

The Athletic FC Podcast

The episode details the unprecedented verdict finding Manchester City guilty of nearly all 115 charges related to Premier League financial r

Key takeaways

• The 115 charges include 54 counts of inaccurate financial reporting and 35 counts of failing to cooperate with investigations.
• Evidence suggests Roberto Mancini's compensation may have been partially disguised through a consultancy agreement with Al Jazeera.

Main topics

• Manchester City financial charges
• Potential Premier League sanctions

Notable quotes

Of course, we can do what we extremely want.

Conclusion

This episode provides a comprehensive breakdown of a landmark sporting

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) The Athletic FC Speaker 4 (0:06) Hello and welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Emma Payton. On Friday, Manchester City were found guilty of almost all of the 115 charges relating to breaches of Premier League financial regulations. Today, we're here to explain what those charges actually are, what the immediate fallout has been from the verdict, and crucially, what happens next. Well, I want to start this episode with a quote which reads... Of course, we can do what we want. Well, that is the line in the hacked emails published by German outlet Der Spiegel in 2018 from former City Football Group board member Simon Pearce. Three and a half years after the charges initially dropped, we finally have a verdict. So let's get into it then. I'm joined in the studio by managing editor of news, Luke Bowsher. Hello. Good morning. How are you doing? I'm all right. I'm all right. How are you? I'm good. All good. We've got Manchester United correspondent Keris Jones. Hello. Speaker 3 (1:05) Hello. Good Speaker 4 (1:06) to see you. Thank you. And all the way in New York, we've got our senior football reporter, Adam Crafton. Adam, always good to see you. Thanks for dropping in because it's pretty early doors where you are, in the city that never sleeps. Speaker 1 (1:18) It is. There's also something this weekend called a Nor'easter, which means there's a massive storm across the East Coast. of the United States and TBD, if that is the Premier League. Speaker 4 (1:33) It's a sign. Speaker 1 (1:34) Hitting globally after the past few days. Speaker 4 (1:38) Just stay safe, all right? Stay safe out there. Well, we are recording on a Sunday morning, which obviously means that something big must have happened. Guys, is this the biggest sports story that you've had in your lifetime, would you say? Speaker 2 (1:53) I think so. The scale of it and the... the money involved. I think there's obviously been massive kind of sporting scandals. You think of Lance Armstrong, we were just talking about off-air and you think about, I mean, within football, Calciopoli was massive as well. And the interesting thing I think is those scandals are massive because of the resolutions that they had and, you know, Juventus getting titles stripped and relegated, Armstrong getting titles stripped. We are so far from the resolution of this and yet it already feels like... enormous so I think it's going to run and run and run I Speaker 3 (2:28) think the implications of it are just so like we were talking again before just saying every time you think about okay well if there's this sanction like this could happen but then what's the knock-on effect on this club do they then get involved in claiming for a trophy that they lost or a champions league place a European every time you think about the potential implications of this when we reach the sanction stage and the scale of what took place over such an extended period I think that's what makes it Such an enormous Speaker 4 (2:55) story. Speaker 3 (2:55) Yeah, Speaker 4 (2:55) we'll get onto sanctions in a little bit. Adam, where does this scandal rank for you? Speaker 1 (3:01) I think it will depend on the sanctions. I mean, if this all ends up with, you know, a big fine, then ultimately not very high. You know, it makes it just a kind of a dramatic version of Everton or Nottingham Forest or Chelsea more recently. So I think we have to wait and see what the punishment is before we can kind of... do a rankings i know our website is desperate to do a ranking yeah but i'll tell we could do that rankings of where this lies in the you know the biggest impact scandals at least i think we have a sense now of kind of the ethics of it um but what football fans really want to know is what is going to happen And this is not the podcast where they're going to find out. No, no, but Speaker 4 (3:48) we are. We're going to chat about what potentially could happen. That's going to come up a little bit later. But Adam sort of set the scene because you've been across this story for many, many years now. So what was your reaction on Friday and how does it feel now to finally have a verdict? Speaker 1 (4:02) Yeah, I think it's I think it probably feels vindicating for many people who have written about it for a long time, because I think, you know, look, a lot of this seemed quite. clear really you know like when you look at what manchester city's commercial income was between kind of the decade 2010 to 2020 and you compared that to some of the more historically established clubs i'm not saying bigger clubs or clubs more deserving but clubs who you would instinctively think like arsenal liverpool manchester united could command greater commercial income um Man City were often getting more money in than that from a commercial point of view. And that didn't make sense. It didn't make logical sense because you would walk around big cities around the world and it wasn't the club that people were asking you about or the jerseys they were wearing. So I think it felt right that this was being looked into. I think if there's a surprise, I think it is how comprehensive. the guilty verdict appears to be. I mean, 114 of 115, if that's how it, you know, turns out to be, we await the Premier League statement. It's stunning because it gives... I mean, you are accusing the club at that point and the people who work there and finding them guilty of extraordinarily serious things, things that really would question whether these executives can carry on in their roles, whether the ownership should remain at the club. And as you say, you know, we'll get on to talking about potential punishments. You know, we should say, probably say at the start, Man City continue to deny. As I feel like we've been saying every episode for the past 10 years, Man City continues to deny wrongdoing. The Premier League are yet to release a statement. And yesterday in his statement, Khaldun Al Mubarak, the Man City chairman, basically came out and said, you know, there's forces trying to destabilise our club, which, you know, I mean, I think some City fans may have been comforted. I think for those of us who live in the United States, it felt a little bit like... a certain man coming to the podium saying, you know, they're all out to get us. So, yeah, it's a fascinating situation. Speaker 4 (6:32) Luke, what's it been like covering this story from a news perspective? Because we've been waiting for an outcome for so long, but it almost felt like this bombshell on Friday. What were the first sort of whisperings you heard on the news desk? Speaker 2 (6:43) Yeah, I think, you know, without betraying too much confidence of the fantastic journalists that we have that broke this story, I think you started to get, whispers very late on Thursday and kind of into Friday morning. But as you said, there's been so many false starts kind of where people thought that, you know, they heard that someone had heard that this was coming and it was going to go one way or the other way. And I think, you know, your sort of initial reaction after all of those is that, okay, like, let's be careful. Obviously, it's a story you can't afford to get wrong, right? But then I think throughout Friday, it became clear that it was quite real, I think. you know, within the industry. I think, you know, people at different outlets were kind of messaging each other, which I think is when you know that it's like, okay, this is proper. And then, yeah, as you said, a story like this, I think it's strange because it's been in the pipeline for so long since effectively February, 2023. You know, you obviously have three years to kind of get prepared and, you know, have all the kind of content to use. Terrible word, I think. But to have all the content that you want ready and I sort of, you know, compare it to the Jurgen Klopp announcing he was leaving Liverpool, right? Where that kind of just came out of nowhere. Like Liverpool kind of announced it, put it on their website, put it on social media and everyone was kind of scrambling. It was chaos. That was a like, not that this wasn't a bombshell, but that was a proper bombshell because you had, you know, everyone was like, okay, we need this, we need that, we need this. And, you know, the reaction podcasts were a plenty. Whereas this, I think. Everyone's kind of known it's been coming. Everyone's been chasing it. But because of the sort of legal ramifications, it's been so tight-lipped. And I think both sides have been afraid of leaking it before its time, really. So, yeah, it's been a long time coming. And kind of, yeah, as we were saying, the verdict is in, as it was, but it doesn't feel like we're anywhere close to Speaker 4 (8:32) a Speaker 2 (8:32) resolution. I think there are going to be many more reaction podcasts to come. Yes, Speaker 4 (8:35) including ours, yeah. Keris, you of course cover Manchester United for The Athletic. What has been the response of City's rivals? I mean, as you'd expect, Speaker 3 (8:44) right? I think there's been a lot of glee from rivals, a sense of, as Adam was kind of saying, of vindication. I think particularly from the United perspective, if you look at the period that these charges cover, it's the period where City... kind of overtook United really, right? And that was a result of United's decline as well as City's acceleration. But for their fans to be able to, for United fans to be able to kind of cling onto that as, you know, okay, well, where did that success come from? Was it valid? Does that help us feel a little bit better about the way things have gone? I think definitely. I think there are also, you know, United fans who... want to know what happens next. They're one of the clubs who lost out to City on Premier League titles in that period. I think the fans of most of City's rivals will be mostly concerned with the sanction more so than the element of the verdict. It will feel like vindication to a lot of people but it doesn't ultimately mean anything to... their club. They want to know how their club could potentially benefit, which I know we'll come on to in detail. Speaker 4 (9:58) Yeah, Speaker 3 (9:58) that's all anyone wants to know, isn't it, if you're a fan of a rival at the moment. Speaker 4 (10:02) Well, Matt Slater, David Ornstein and Sam Lee marshaled our immediate reaction show when the news initially broke on Friday. But today, what I want us to do really is to give a bit of a history lesson and then, of course, throw the story forward. So firstly, between us, we're just going to explain what the Chargers actually are. as they fundamentally break down into five categories. So those categories are 54 charges of failing to provide accurate financial information, 14 charges of failing to provide accurate details for player and manager payments, seven charges of breaching profit and sustainability rules, five charges of failing to comply with UEFA's FFP regulations. and then 35 charges of failing to cooperate with Premier League investigations. So let's just make our way through these. Luke, if you start by explaining to viewers and to listeners what failing to provide accurate financial information means. Speaker 2 (11:01) Yeah, so this is the biggest kind of tranche of charges, basically half of what City were accused of by the Premier League. I think effectively... All Premier League clubs, you know, as part of the Premier League rules that they kind of sign on to on a yearly basis have to provide, they basically agree to provide accurate financial information to the league in order to comply with the league's financial fair play or FFP rules as they've been come to know. And so this is kind of, with the charges, City have kind of alleged to have breached five or six of these clauses kind of every year over this nine year period. I think it is all kind of broadly relating to FFP, which those rules were tweaked a little bit season to season and they see evolved into becoming PSR nowadays. And I think the key question, I think effectively from the 54 charges of about accurate information was, were City reporting the true revenue or were they trying to disguise it through? these sponsorship deals and through you know the other bits of charges that um i think we'll come on to so Speaker 4 (12:12) that's uh failing to provide accurate financial information adam what about failing to provide accurate details for player and manager payments this Speaker 1 (12:21) is one of the fun ones most of them are quite boring this is this is one of the fun ones so the manager who won the first premier league for manchester city most famously um roberto mancini he had a kind of a fixed base agreement according to the all of these leaked emails and leaked documents which i think was about 1.4 to 1.5 million um however he also had a consultancy agreement for a sister club called al jazeera in abu dhabi and they were paying about 1.75 million a year for about four days of coaching per year which seems to be a little bit higher than what he was being paid to manage Premier League club. And these payments appear to have been sort of filtered out of City