The countdown to Manchester City’s appeal against last week’s guilty verdict is running. City have until Friday, 2 October, 14 days from the independent commission’s ruling, to formally lodge their case. Until they do, and until the appeal is heard and decided, no points can be deducted, no fine can be imposed and no title can be taken back.
The commission found the club guilty on 114 of the 115 charges brought by the Premier League over financial conduct across nine seasons from 2009/10 to 2017/18, reported by The Athletic on 25 September and confirmed by the league the following day. The charges cover what the panel described as sham commercial agreements used to inflate the club’s revenue.
None of this has surfaced on the pitch. Enzo Maresca took over from Pep Guardiola in the summer and City have opened the 2026/27 season with five wins from five in the Premier League, including a 1-0 win at Old Trafford after Phil Foden was sent off in the 23rd minute of the derby. Maresca is on the shortlist for September’s Manager of the Month award.
A new three-judge panel with narrow grounds to overturn
The appeal will not be a rerun of the case. A fresh three-person commission, selected by Sir Gary Hickinbottom, chair of the Premier League’s judicial panel, will hear it. None of them sat on the original hearing.
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The grounds available to the appeal panel are narrow: procedural unfairness, misconduct or fraud. City cannot re-argue the merits of the case. And this time they cannot escalate to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the route they used when overturning UEFA’s two-year Champions League ban in 2020. That closes off the “months and years” horizon that shaped the previous case.
Borson: appeal ‘very unlikely to succeed’
Stefan Borson, a former financial adviser to Manchester City, was blunt about the club’s position.
“An appeal on the basis of the facts is very unlikely to succeed,” Borson said.
January 2027 at the earliest
The commission has a wide sanction menu if the verdict stands. A significant fine, a transfer ban, points deductions, expulsion from the Premier League, and the annulment of past titles are all on the table. There is no formula for how 114 charges translate into points. City finished second last season on 78 points; a deduction large enough to send them into the relegation places is well within the commission’s discretion.
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Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak has said the club will fight the ruling. “The Premier League process still has a long way to run, and our confidence and intent in proving the club’s innocence is just as strong as when this began,” he said in a statement issued after the verdict.
Under Premier League rules the appeal must be concluded within three months of being lodged. If City file on the 2 October deadline and the process runs the full window, the earliest a final punishment can be confirmed is January 2027.
