Seismic Reckoning: Inside Manchester City’s 114 Guilty Charges and Premier League Fallout

The Athletic F.C. Ladies and gentlemen, how are you? How is everybody? It's Friday afternoon. If there's one thing I've always known about this thing, it was going to happen on a Friday afternoon. What are we going to talk about? Why are we here? Well, we have a verdict. Manchester City have been found guilty on all but one of the 115 charges, or I know there's some discussion about whether it's 115 or not, but they've been found guilty on nearly all of them relating to the breaches of the Premier League's financial regulations. So welcome to the Athletic F.C. podcast live on YouTube. I'm Matt Slater, and I'm joined by our football correspondent David Ornstein, who has broken the news about half an hour ago. And I'm interested to see you report to Sam Lee. So please keep your questions coming in in the live chat and we'll do our best to get to them as soon as we can. I suspect you'll have a few. David, what has happened, what's the verdict? What on earth have you just dropped on the Athletic? It's not just me, Matt, issue as well because you've been across this story and several colleagues also, Sam, yourself and others have been across this whole case for years. Yeah, Manchester City, we understand, have now been found guilty by an independent commission in relation to pretty much all charges that relate to breaches of the Premier League's financial rules. It's important to say immediately that Manchester City are expected to appear against this decision. And crucially, because I'm receiving so many questions on what's the punishment, sanctions have not taken place. And that means the situation is ongoing and you suspect that it has quite some time to run yet. No, it digs. I mean, I think we always knew they were going to do liability first. They were going to do yes, no, guilty, innocent first, and then we were going to get to sanctions hearing. So that is very much to come. I think this, though, is absolute seismic. It's the biggest sports story I can remember, probably of our careers. So Sam, before we do, I do think we do need to do it a bit of a reminder because this has been going on for so long, people will have forgotten how this started. But Sam, just very quickly, let's hear what man City have got to say, what have they said today? Yeah, I need to do my best, Gary Linnaker impression. I should find some glasses to put on, but I'm going to read off my phone, the statement from the city spokesperson to the athletic earlier this afternoon, it says, the Premier League process remains ongoing with significant elements still to be completed and subject to strict confidentiality. As such, Manchester City FC's position remains consistent with the club statement of February 2023. It then continues, the club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis the Premier League board and executive would behave as an independent impartial and fair minded regulator free from partisan influence. There's a lot to read between the lines off there. Yeah, yeah, I mean, Crucially, it's not a denial. It's obviously heavily legaled, David, I think you put the call into them. Was it straight? Was that it? This is what we've got to say, we're not saying another word. Yeah, I think you've got to refer to that statement in terms of the confidentiality around this. No parties are going to sort of tell you anything of particular note on or off the record from my experience and you've been doing this a lot longer than me, Matt. So the statement has been delivered and I guess other media requiring about it will receive the same answer. There's been nothing from the Premier League in terms of statement on or off record. And you've got to be very careful at this point because this can go in all manner of directions. So there will be wild speculation. There has been since this case sort of emerged and don't forget that these charges relate to sort of alleged offences, now been ruled guilty on, from 2009 to 2018, that's a nine year period. Initially, it was believed to be 115 that were then reports of further charges, misreporting of financial information, a lot of that related to sponsorship deals that we can get into subsequently, payments to managers, for example, noncompliance, breaches of the Premier League's financial rules, profits and sustainability. So there's a wide gamut there and there's going to be a huge amount to unpick. That's why it's taken so long to get to this stage. It was not a simple case which Everton and Nottingham Forest, for example, were referred to by those involved. It was more straightforward, Chelsea was different, it was more about tax essentially and payments to agents, it was a very different situation. This has been complex and it's why it's taken so long. And it's why unfortunately we might not have total clarity yet on what's going to happen. There could be an almighty fight, I suspect there has been until this point. But you use the word seismic. This is really enormous news because it's allegations of cheating, rule-breaking on an industrial scale, the like of which has never been seen before in Premier League, European or World Football and that's why the whole gamut of punishments are open to an independent commission, whoever Matt will tell us will deliver the sanctions and that could be expulsion, it could be relegation, it could be points, it could be financial, it could be a warning. Could I guess technically be titles handed back, I don't know, but we are now on to that phase which we've not been at before because we were waiting to find out for so long dating back to the charges, I believe the 7th of February 2023, I was on a chairlift in a ski resort, I think it was a where you were moment, you all remember when those charges dropped and now we have the out come. Well let me just jump in, let's do a timeline because I think people will be getting their heads around this all weekend. Sam, feel free to jump in because obviously you have covered this, this is your beat but it's all stems, it's started in 2018, late 2018 with the Speegle, the German publication published some hacked emails, they had been hacked by Portuguese, Hacker call Roy Pinto, people might remember him from the Football League stuff, various stories came from his hacking, this is being the one that's really resonated though and it really initially was about half a dozen emails, to Speegle later published a lot more emails, they basically published what they called the run of emails, the ones before, the whole chains of emails as you know people when you respond to an email, you get a whole chain of them. But initially it was just these sort of five, that doesn't read very well, type emails and they basically without going over the whole story because I think people will remember this, it portrayed a picture of Manchester City executives speaking to people, sometimes government officials, sometimes people at Etihad, Etihad, some of the big early sponsors, some of them you know still sponsors to this day, I've mentioned the city and asking them really for well where's that sponsorship money and did you send it the right way and is this coming from the airline or is this coming from a government official? So right from the get go, who could there have been sort of conversations around how on earth I mentioned the city sort of funding this enormous tanks on law moment when they, after the takeover, you know what, you know are they really, are they really this big already, you know people could sort of see well you know Liverpool, Man United, those were our big clubs Arsenal, Man City but these enormous commercial revenues very, very quickly and people were just wondering you know these are these legitimate sponsors or these sort of fluffed up pumped up is this, is this disguised owner funding and these emails certainly to most people who didn't have a dog in the fight, read them and thought right there's certainly something going on here, so your wafer picked this up straight away, your wafer do tend to do things pretty quickly, they charge Man City, they did their own process, they initially banned Man City for two years from European competition, Man City promptly appealed that at CAS, that looked like an absolutely significant moment in this story because they got a big win, they won two won, a three person panel, side of a Man City side of the story, again some of the reporting on that has always been a bit confusing because some of the charges were timed out, Man City, sorry, your wafer had a very sort of strict statute of limitations rules, some of the earlier charges were timed out, but fundamentally your wafer's ruling was, sorry, CAS is ruling was that your wafer's case wasn't proven, it's you know, yes we can see these apparently damaging looking emails, but we need a bit more, these accusations are basically a conspiracy to fraud, your wafer and later on Premier League, we need some big proof here as well, it reminds me of sort of Lance Armstrong's famous statement about, if you're going to make big accusations you need big proof, that was effectively what sort of Man City was saying to your wafer, it's what you wafer, it's what CAS agreed, so 2020 that process appears, if that chapter closes, Man City were not banned and continue to go on and do quite well in European competitions, at that point meant Premier League's process, which had been worrying along in the background, picks up, we don't hear much for a few years, we get, I think, I come from, it was 2021, we got a brief above the surface, like a submarine, they've been a rowing court, where High Court, where Man City had objected to what they felt was, was Premier League fishing trip, you know, sort of in discovery, Premier League asking for pretty much everything, yes we've seen these hack emails, we want the lot now, and Man City pushing back, and the actual surfacing of the story was around whether this could be, whether this could be reported, because ordinarily when you go to court, it's public, so this was a sort of very rare venture into High Court, which, which are public forums, anyway, it then goes back under water for a bit, until February 23, that's when the charges start, okay, so when we get the charges, you know, from that moment on, this becomes the 115 case, it then all goes underground again, just quickly then, just quickly then, this is a point at which Manchester City released a statement saying that the club was surprised by the charges, and it welcomes the review of this matter by an independent commission to impartially consider the comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of its position. Yeah, so I just do the last bits, very quickly, just to bring everyone up to speed, then some I want you to jump in and just sort of explain really how Man City have kind of dealt with this, they're sort of the full response to this during this period, so February 23, we get the charges, September 24, we get the beginning of the arbitration hearing. It lasted 12 weeks, everyone remembers or read about the high-powered lawyers on both sides, law panic, appearing for for Man City, don't worry, Premier League will well represent it as well, 12 weeks, that gets us to December 24, we have been waiting the best part two years now for this verdict. So Sam, how of Man City dealt with this, certainly over the last few years, yeah, well it goes back to that statement, as you know, when I read out the city statement earlier on, they said, we just refer you back to the February 21, which David's just read out there, it's basically been, look, this is the stance from February 2023, like David said earlier, when it comes to City, when it comes to the Premier League, there is not a lot to say on or off the record, when I read that city statement out earlier on, I said there's a lot to kind of read between the lines there, you know, they're saying, look, we entered into this in good faith, what about, maybe suggesting the other party hasn't, because they've wanted to make sure they're kind of whiter than white, that, you know, they've, they've not been seen to leak, well, they're not wanted to leak anything, they've certainly not wanted to be seen to leak anything, it's just been a kind of stone wall, this is what we said when the charges came out, this is our position, and obviously like, like I interjected briefly when, when David read out that February 23 statement about the irrefutable evidence and how everyone's going to say, look, whether you're a city fan, whether you're not a city fan, everyone's going to say, well, what happens to this? Where is this? So that is one of the key questions, but I've got a slight interest in point to raise considering this is a conversation, does it feel a bit like when they were banned from the Champions League, and it was like, this, the world is ending, yeah, definitely done it, throw the book at them, great, six months later, appeal to Cass, and you know, they had the fine, but it was largely good news, wasn't it, they're back in the Champions League, move on, so is there an element of that, to this, you know, do we have to hold our horses a little bit, and is that where cities, irrefutable body of evidence comes, is, you know, if they appeal to, they say, well, this is this, however, and you know, obviously cities say, and, you know, we've, we've done this the right way, and they kind of, my reading of that are maybe wrong, my reading of their statement, today suggest they're saying it hasn't fully been, been done properly, so there is an element of that. They're absolutely is, and we absolutely know they're going to appeal. I would just say there is one slight difference, if you remember Sam, we talked about this at length at the time, Man City chose, they did it, they did it on purpose, they held, they held their big guns back, and they waited for Cass, because they just thought that they weren't going to get a good hearing at your wafer, so, so they played a longer game. I don't think they've done this, this time. I think they've given everything they can. It should be on the sea, all on the table. Yeah, and I think this all, this will be a real blow. But Sam, before we go back to David's, can you just talk us through possible sanctions? I know absolutely with the enormous caveat that, yeah, to right, Man City are going to appeal this, but what are the possible punishments? It's all laid out and ruled W-51, I believe. Yeah, well, everyone wants to know about strip titles going back years, you know, for Liverpool in particular, United, anybody who kind of finished second, anybody, I guess it trickles down. If you've missed out on the Champions League spot by one place, if you missed out on Europa League spot by one place, you'll all be saying, well, this is our place, so do they get sued by everybody else? Do they have to give the titles back? If there's a relegation, is that a blanket you're out of the league? Are they kicked out and they need to reapply to be in the football league? Or is it a point to deductions? Are there his type of deductions that will be in office? Sam, just to remind you, just to remind you, I don't need to remind you, but just as you were talking about earlier on, I was just looking at where they came in the nine years, fifth, third, first, second, first, second, fourth, third, first, three titles in there. You know, Pep Hariola operated under this cloud. What was it like, you know, kind of dealing with him or did or was it just, well, it just doesn't matter if you're here. Well, no, it was a story, but in the sense that he was always extremely defiant, I remember people using the quote, the Guadilla that said along the lines of, if, you know, if they've lived to me, I'll leave. And people were using that as a, oh, well, you know, now they've been charged because he said that during the Champions League stuff, when they were charged by the Premier League, it was, oh, well, look, he's obviously going to leave them. But his point was, I don't believe they have lied to me, they haven't lied to me. And we're in this together. We will find out. But, you know, I think we kind of joked with him when he left at the end of last season, you know, what you think about the charges and he was like, well, when the verdict comes out, give me a call and I'll do a press conference or something because he, it wasn't like a non-story for him, but he was just very confident. I think based on everything he'd been told behind the scenes that this day wouldn't come. And again, just to go back to, you know, how they dealt with it and signs, you know, this old thing, if you're in the lottery, I won't tell anyone, but there'll be signs, you know, you'd turn up with like the Sadies or whatever. But, you know, Harlan signed that nine and a half year contract about five weeks. And all of these things, they, you know, they started to rebuild the squad that January. It was all very much like, well, we'd heard City were confident anyway. And this certainly suggests it. And so that goes back to how they've been feeling about it. So, so yeah, so come back with guilty of virtually everything is just unexpected. So David, we've just heard, you know, Sam and how Man City have kind of operated under this cloud. What's the mood been like in the league during this period? What have you heard in your conversations with clubs about, you know, have they been bored of this? Have they occasionally just gone, oh, you know, this is going to be another one of those cast situations? Or have there been clubs that have been really annoyed at this and have been just, you know, almost as frustrated as some of us at times, you know, what's it been like talking to clubs about this case? Well, first of all, these rumours have been circulating for quite some time right up until today, you started to hear information and trying to get detail or any response out of Premier League club contacts was like trying to extract water out of a stone. I suspect non-disclosure agreements have been flying around. Absolute secrecy and discretion on this matter and nobody wants to impact it, be implicated, that will be the same at Manchester City and the Premier League. Since we drop the news, I think the feeling has been one of shock at the scale of the guilty verdict, virtually all charges and we hear that to be all but one from conversations we've had and so their minds are opened up to a world of possibilities that Sam and I have outlined. They want to know what it's going to be because Matt, this could have enormous ramifications. Could there be legal challenges by Premier League clubs? Could there be claims for compensation? Well, I want to ask you about that, David. What do you think is the appetites? I mean, if we think about kind of doping cases, we think about, mentioning already Lam's Armstrong, they never reallocated those Tour de France titles. We've seen this enormous big kind of sports law story break in the states with the LA Clippers. What is the appetites you think? Can you imagine Man United saying, you owe me a title, Liverpool, you owe me a title? Well, firstly, I want to remind our audiences that City will probably still be quite bullish about this, a long way to run the conversations that I had in obtaining the statement. I didn't sense panic. I've had a message from one friend within the industry, reminding me of the Saracens case in rugby union, where they got in trouble, but ended up sort of getting away with things on appeals and it was far less dramatic at the end. They were relegated. They were relegated. As were you venting this? Yeah, so we have seen some pretty draconian punishments, but we don't know how this is going to pan out. Secondly, on the appetites, the initial reaction has been one of numbness. I haven't sensed they know what they're thinking right now. President would suggest that there will be some action given that Burnley was it to catch them against Everton? Yeah, against Everton recently. Huge case. It's got a appeal to the tutor. It's got a appeal now, though. 40 million pounds. We reported on how Lester City and Leeds United were considering the same against Everton. These are not just idle threats when you see stories come out saying clubs considering their options. They absolutely will be on the ground level, but also the egos and the magnitude of their investments to these club owners shouldn't be underestimated. It's not like they'll be afraid of taking on Manchester City any other club that might have been in this position. They deal with big things in other areas of their business empires. But if we cast our minds back to many of the conversations we've had over these years, Matt, we've spoken to owners, executives who have almost valued Manchester City as a league member. They want them docked. They want them to have a slap on the wrists of varying degrees. Maybe a major slap on the wrist that draws blood and others just a little scratch. But I haven't heard many paying for them to be expelled and disintegrated. I mean, we haven't even talked yet today about the ramifications. This could have on financial institutions, partner companies who Manchester City, UKPLC, you know, the UAE. I mean, this has gone up to government. Yeah, exactly. This has gone up to government level conversation and I think Adam Kraft and reported on it at some point. So it's not so simple as I think the club's saying we're going to take them on. I think there will be appetite, but right now I'm sensing that they want details, they want information, they want clarity on what the Premier League are proposing before they think of their own stuff. Guys, our phones are ringing. My phones are ringing. There's going to be a hell of a lot more to say about this. This is just the beginning. This story is going to run and run and run and run. Thanks very much for your time. Thanks very much for watching. Please stay tuned to all the latest developments on the athletic and we'll bring you much more reaction on this much more on this show across the app over the coming days.