Richard Masters had spent more than three years refusing to say a word about the Manchester City case. On Tuesday, with the independent commission’s verdict in the Premier League’s hands, he chose his moment.

“This disciplinary case, and this decision, are the most significant in Premier League history,” the league’s chief executive said in the Premier League’s official statement on 29 September. “It also vindicates the Premier League’s decision to pursue this case against Manchester City.”

Masters went further than the guarded language most had expected. He said the ruling established that “the club systematically broke Premier League Rules for nearly a decade” and framed the enforcement itself as the point: “It is a key responsibility of the Premier League to ensure that the Rules … are upheld to protect the integrity of the competition.”

Nine seasons of ‘sham’ contracts

The statement itself is what turns Masters’ language from rhetoric into an itemised charge sheet. The commission’s findings cover nine seasons between 2009/10 and 2017/18 and centre on a single mechanism: contracts the panel described as “sham”.

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City, the statement says, “arranged ‘sham’ contracts (which misrepresented the true agreement between the parties)” with commercial partners in order to “artificially inflate the club’s revenues, and reduce its costs, by more than £900 million” over that period. The gap between what those deals appeared to be worth and what they actually generated “was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG)”, the club’s ownership vehicle.

The 42-day hearing that produced the verdict concluded in December 2024, more than six years after the Premier League opened its investigation in December 2018 and more than three years after the formal complaint was issued in February 2023.

City calls the ruling ‘unsafe’

Manchester City rejected the ruling within hours. In its own statement, the club said it “is innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League and a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its positions”, as reported by Yahoo Sports.

“Manchester City FC will now pursue the appeal avenues open to it, on the basis that the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe.”

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The window is tight. The club has 14 days from the ruling to lodge that appeal, which means a deadline of Friday, 2 October.

Appeal goes to a new commission, not to CAS

Once City file, the case moves to a fresh three-person appeal commission chosen from the Premier League’s judicial panel under section W of the league’s rules, according to Sky Sports. Panel members are selected by the panel’s chair, Sir Gary Hickinbottom.

That commission’s decision is the end of the road inside football’s dispute machinery. City cannot escalate to the Court of Arbitration for Sport; a challenge to the process itself would have to go through the English courts.

Available sanctions at that separate hearing run from fines and points deductions to expulsion from the Premier League. There is no fixed grid.

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Sanctions hearing to follow

The verdict on the charges is not the verdict on the punishment. A separate sanctions hearing before the same independent commission will decide what actually happens to Manchester City, and Masters made clear the league wants that hearing wrapped up quickly.

“There are elements of the case that remain to be decided, including, importantly, what sanction must follow for these breaches,” he said. “Now we have the Commission’s decision, we are committed to moving swiftly through the remainder of the process, to provide certainty for the League, our clubs and fans.”

The Premier League’s stated aim is a resolution on sanctions before the end of the 2026/27 season. City’s appeal, once filed on Friday, is the next date on that calendar.

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