Manchester City filed a comprehensive appeal against the independent commission’s guilty verdict at 7pm local time on Thursday, inside the deadline set after the panel found the club in breach of more than 100 Premier League financial regulations.

The commission concluded City had arranged what it called “sham” contracts with commercial partners between 2009/10 and 2017/18, inflating revenues by around £830 million through a disguised funding stream.

The club’s statement rejected the ruling in flat language.

“The club’s firm position is that, on multiple grounds, the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact and is unsafe,” the statement read.

Read also: Verstappen finally wins in 2026: chaos, red flags and a stunning Hamilton comeback in Malaysia

Noel Gallagher: ‘A bit of a shock’

Noel Gallagher, the band’s songwriter and a lifelong supporter, addressed the verdict on City podcast Let Me Talk after years of assurances from the club it had done nothing wrong.

“I know what I saw and I know what I felt,” he said, describing the ruling as “a bit of a shock” and adding he felt “sad for the fans and for the players”.

Liam Gallagher took a different route on X, signing off a reply to a critic with “CTID”, the shorthand for City Till I Die.

The crescent moon on the wall

Weeks earlier, a teaser clip the band posted on 4 September 2026 showed two boys playing football against a red-brick wall, one marking tallies in chalk while the other wore a light-blue jacket. A pale crescent moon was drawn above the window.

Read also: Barcelona’s £130m ‘Project Viking’ chases Haaland for 2027 as Man City await their FFP sanction

Radio X read the crescent as a reference to City’s anthem Blue Moon. Fans counted eleven tally marks and read it as a dates clue.

The clue held. The Oasis Live ’27 run opens with 11 nights at the Etihad in June 2027, on 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 15, 18, 19, 22, 25 and 26 June, with Richard Ashcroft on support.

A 12-week clock, or longer

The Premier League’s new rules give the appeal commission up to 12 weeks to complete its work, with hearings capped at five consecutive days.

City are expected to challenge whether those expedited rules apply to a case that began under the old framework, a dispute that could push proceedings into 2027 and run alongside the Etihad gigs.

Read also: Real Madrid’s defensive crisis cracks the door open for a 19-year-old before El Clásico

Read also: Spalletti compares Yildiz to Kvaratskhelia and delivers blunt verdict on Vlahovic