Manchester City filed their appeal at 7pm on Thursday against the independent commission that found them guilty on 114 of 115 financial rule charges. Within hours, attention had turned to a document the club’s own shirt and stadium sponsor filed in Washington in May 2015.
The appeal, lodged a day before Friday’s deadline, is built on an argument that commercial sponsorship payments the independent commission treated as disguised owner funding were in fact financial assistance that reached the sponsors from the Abu Dhabi government. City contend such an arrangement is within Premier League rules.
That argument runs into Etihad Airways’ own words. In 2015, when US carriers were accusing Gulf airlines of relying on state subsidies, Etihad told the US Departments of Commerce, Transportation and State that the opposite was true.
“The assertion that the Abu Dhabi government paid for Etihad’s sponsorship of English Premier League football club Manchester City is equally false,” Etihad’s filing stated, as reported by Sam Wallace in The Telegraph.
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The same submission added that Etihad “funded this sponsorship from its own liquidity” and that it did “not receive any subsidies from the Abu Dhabi government”.
What City are arguing on appeal
According to the appeal wording reported by GiveMeSport, City now say sponsorship fees “had been paid to the Club by AD Sponsors from their own funds/resources” but that “AD Sponsors had from time to time applied for financial assistance from the AD Government”.
The distinction matters. If the money that reached the club came from the sponsors’ own treasuries, Etihad’s 2015 statement to Washington is consistent with the club’s position. If the money reached the sponsors from the Abu Dhabi government and then flowed on to the club, Etihad’s own filing to the US government says that did not happen.
A new three-person panel, different from the one that delivered the original verdict, will hear the appeal. Under the Premier League’s speeded-up rules introduced this season, the process is meant to be concluded within 12 weeks, the hearing itself is capped at five consecutive days in one block, and the panel then has 30 days to deliver judgment.
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The 114-charge verdict and £830m
The original commission ruled that City breached Premier League financial regulations across nine seasons from 2009-10 to 2017-18, upholding 114 of the 115 charges first brought in February 2023. The panel found the club had disguised £830m of owner funding as sponsorship income, and dismissed City’s explanation as one “the club had concocted well after the event”.
City’s statement after lodging the appeal rejected that reading. The club said it was “innocent of the accusations” and that the ruling “contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact and is unsafe”.
Sanction remains open. The commission has not yet imposed a punishment and will hold a separate hearing on penalties once the appeal is resolved. Options run from a fine to a points deduction to relegation. On the Premier League’s speeded-up timetable, judgment on the appeal would land in the third week of January 2027, though City’s lawyers may argue those new rules should not apply to a case that began in 2023.
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