Manchester City’s response to being found guilty of nearly all the financial charges brought by the Premier League is not confined to a denial. In an official club statement published on Tuesday, the club insist they are “innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League”, and go further to accuse the league itself of failing in the role of impartial regulator.

“The club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis that the Premier League Board and Executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator, free from partisan influence.”

‘Errors of law, principle and fact’

City brand the commission’s opinion “unsafe” and say it contains “clear material errors of law, principle and fact”.

“A comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its positions, relating to this case.”

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The club also vow to be “relentless, and where necessary proactive, in any and all appropriate regulatory and legal forums.”

£900m over nine seasons

The independent commission found City guilty of every charge relating to serious breaches of the league’s financial rules across nine seasons, from 2009/10 to 2017/18, and of three of the four charges concerning the club’s failure to cooperate with the investigation.

According to the Premier League, City artificially inflated revenues and reduced costs by more than £900 million over that period, through “sham” commercial contracts and misstated accounts that concealed the true position from auditors and regulators.

Sanctions, which may include fines and points deductions, will be decided at a separate private hearing.

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Friday deadline, no route to CAS

City have until Friday, 2 October to file. The grounds are tightly drawn: an appeal is not a fresh hearing on the merits but a review, according to Sky Sports’ explainer of the process, limited to challenges of procedural unfairness, misconduct or fraud by the original commission.

A new three-person Appeal Board will hear the case in private. It can allow the appeal, dismiss it, or “make any order that it deems fit”, and its ruling is final within the Premier League’s own system, with no onward route to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

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