Category: English Premier League

• ‘They won the titles because cheating was going on’

• Micah Richards says he is ‘devastated and heartbroken’

The former Manchester United captain Roy Keane said he would throw the “medals in the bin” if he were a Manchester City player after Premier League confirmation on Tuesday that the club were guilty of all charges related to their financial rules and boosted their income by more than £900m after arranging “sham ­contracts” with commercial partners.

City, who continue to deny any wrongdoing, won eight trophies, including three Premier League titles between 2009 and 2018, the period under investigation. Keane said the achievements of City’s players had become redundant because of the “cheating” that took place during that time.

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How can Manchester City be trusted under these owners after they were found to have devised £900m of ‘sham’ contracts?

How bad could it be, really? How serious can a breach of arcane financial regulations be, really? Just how damning can accountancy be? Even after Friday’s revelation that Manchester City had been found guilty of all but one of the charges brought against them by the Premier League, it was perhaps difficult to grasp the scale of what that meant. After the publication of the independent commission’s findings, there can be no doubt: the commission found that Manchester City cheated, that they did so deliberately, and that they have sought to cover that up with a campaign of calculated misinformation.

City continue to maintain their innocence and issued a statement insisting that “the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe”. It referred, once again, to “a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of all of its positions”, and, again, insisted that “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”.

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• Soriano: the case is based on ‘a single false accusation’

• Club to appeal after verdict on more than 100 charges

Manchester City’s chief executive, Ferran Soriano, has said the guilty verdicts against the club for breaches of financial rules are based on “a single false accusation” and a “Premier League conspiracy theory”, as he maintained City’s innocence.

It was confirmed on Tuesday that City, according to an independent panel, had artificially inflated revenue and reduced costs by more than £900m over a nine-year period through “sham” sponsorship deals, which were mainly funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), which owned the club. In a video sent to City staff after confirmation of the guilty verdict on more than 100 charges, Soriano said the club would appeal and fight the case.

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• ‘Sham’ contracts helped inflate revenues by £900m

• Commission finds club guilty over nine-season period

Manchester City have been found guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules over a nine-season period, the league has announced.

The league also said an independent commission had found City guilty of the majority of charges in relation to its failure to cooperate with its investigation.

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• ‘I wouldn’t feel comfortable … I don’t think we deserved it’

• Manchester United finished second to City in 2011-12

Wayne Rooney does not believe it would be appropriate for Manchester City to be stripped of titles for breaching Premier League financial rules, even if it gave him another Premier League winner’s medal, as that would be unfair of the City players and staff whose endeavours secured success.

City are waiting to find out what sanctions they will face after being found guilty of more than a hundred charges, with an array of potential punishments on the table. Rooney was part of the United squad in 2011-12 that finished second to City on goal difference after Sergio Agüero’s last-minute winner secured the Premier League trophy for Roberto Mancini’s side on the final day.

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When transnational alliances have scarcely been weaker, the way the club was allegedly run offers a bleak vision of a world driven by brute power and wealth

The cache of leaked emails and documents that would eventually lead to the crisis in which Manchester City are now embroiled was published by Der Spiegel in 2018, and often it was the tone of the club’s communications that was as startling as their content. Of City chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak, a trusted adviser to the royal family of the United Arab Emirates, it was said that he would “rather spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue [Uefa] for the next 10 years” than accept a fine.

In the same tranche of documents, City lawyer Simon Cliff asserts that “Uefa doesn’t respond to anything other than aggression”, and threatens the governing body of European football – who were pursuing City over alleged financial irregularities at the time – with “the destruction of their rules and organisation”.

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Manchester City have come out fighting against the guilty verdict but the Premier League faces questions of its own

Nothing is over, nothing is done. Or at least not judging by the bravura, balls-out confidence of Manchester City’s chair, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, who remains convinced the past three days of whiplash are simply the drumroll before the big reveal, prelude to some clinching piece of evidence that will swish away the initial finding of guilt on the Premier League’s 100-plus charges.

This appears to be the official City position right now. Rope‑a‑dope litigation. Scooby‑Doo justice. A verdict that is simply exposition, buildup to that moment where we finally get to rip off the zombie mask and reveal the cranky old amusement park owner underneath, with his bulging ring‑binder full of irrefutable evidence of City’s innocence.

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• Coach alleged to have been paid for advisory work

• He also claims the club is ‘not guilty’ despite verdict

Roberto Mancini appeared to admit having “a double contract” while managing Manchester City, but insisted the club are not guilty after being found to have breached ­Premier League financial rules.

Mancini led City to their first ­Premier League title in 2012 during his four-year spell in Manchester. Now in charge of the Italy national team, he described the scandal surrounding the club as “not a problem that concerns me”.

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Premier League could be hit hard by aftermath, while Manchester City fans may know they took 30 years to recover from a guilty verdict in 1906

So it turns out none of that was real. Nothing that happened in English football between 2009-10 and 2017-18 that involved Manchester City actually happened. City beating Manchester United 6-1 at Old Trafford? Fake. Sergio Agüero’s 94th-minute winner to clinch the title in 2012? A figment of the imagination. That season City reached 100 points? Bobby Ewing dreamed it in the shower.

Without those successes, City wouldn’t have been in the position they were for the past eight seasons (and 35 of the charges relate to a failure to cooperate with Premier League investigations between 2018 and 2023). The 14 successive wins that took them to the league title in 2018-19 would not have happened without what went before. Neither would the Treble of 2023 or the record four league titles in a row.

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• Manager Maresca posts ‘I know nothing’ message

• David Bernstein: a fine is not sufficient if appeal fails

Khaldoon Al Mubarak, the Manchester City chair, has spoken for the first time since the club was found guilty on virtually all counts of breaching Premier League financial rules, saying “nothing has changed” and “our confidence and intent in proving the club’s innocence is just as strong as when this began”.

News broke on Friday that City had been found guilty on all but one of the 115 charges laid by the Premier League in February 2023, charges the club have always strenuously denied.

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Friday’s verdict against Manchester City will change everything we understood about their Premier League title triumphs

Welcome, then, to the age of asterisk. Whatever punishment Manchester City and their owners receive at the end of this process, the fact remains, everything is tainted now.

Overturn the tables, scatter the gold coins. Throw your medals in the bin. You cheated to win them. Whatever that thing was, it’s done. Stolen glory, stolen income, stolen joy. Every chant, every “we won the lot”, every awkward documentary scene about the deep, throbbing heart of this empire of love. It all looks odd, sinister, cold, sloppy, but also, and this is always the best response, utterly absurd.

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This week, we dive into the big questions surrounding the most surprising result of the Premier League weekend

Before this past weekend, Arsenal had not lost in the Premier League since April. Nine straight league wins had been enough to crown the Gunners as champions at the end of last season and firmly establish them as the team to beat early this season.

Against Brighton on Saturday, though, the team to beat were beaten. Thoroughly.

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Brighton have impressed in a goal-laden start to the season, in a league that remains a brutally strong attraction

Get ready for the dopamine crash. And this one really is a proper autumn nosedive. The past 17 days up to and including Sunday’s cut-off gave us 30 Premier League games and 79 goals. Which, if you take Spurs out of it – and this is fair because Spurs are now post‑goal, an entertainment concept unrelated to goals or even football itself – is really quite a lot.

Are your pathways stimulated? Are the neural connectors flickering? Well get ready for cold turkey, for 19 blank days of shivers and shakes until the Premier League show resumes in October. Maybe it really is time to buy one of those powders off the internet.

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Pre-season thoughts of European qualification are already beginning to look bafflingly optimistic for Roberto De Zerbi’s team

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In March, Tottenham, fearing possible relegation, spent big to bring in Roberto De Zerbi, who will probably never go into a negotiation with a stronger hand. There was obvious improvement and they stayed up on the final day of the season. Since then, Spurs have spent a net £175m ($234m) on improving the squad. The message seemed clear: the fiscal caution of the Daniel Levy era was over and this was a club willing to spend. Yet Spurs go into the first international break bottom of the Premier League table.

To an extent, the issue is confidence. On the opening weekend at Brentford, with a weird mishmash of a side, a team that was clearly undercooked, they were hammered 3-0 by much better-prepared opponents. That was not hugely surprising given how sensible Brentford’s transfer dealing had been and how early they had done it. More worrying was what happened the following week as Spurs, starting well before fading, lost 2-0 at home to Newcastle.

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Liverpool look stronger at the back, youngsters shine for Brighton and Brentford, and James Trafford makes his England case with Leeds

• Premier League table | Top scorers

In the week that 16-year-old Max Dowman has been thrust into the spotlight, it was another teenager who gave us a glimpse of the future in Brighton’s impressive win over Arsenal. Charalampos Kostoulas – nicknamed ‘Babis’ in his homeland, in homage to former Argentina striker Gabriel Batistuta – has already started twice as many Premier League games as he did in his first season in English football, when he was a backup for Danny Welbeck. The 19-year-old repaid Fabian Hürzeler’s faith in him against the reigning champions. Despite his tender years, Kostoulas already possesses the physical attributes to mix it with the best. He caused Gabriel Magalhães and company problems all afternoon, capping it off with a brilliant goal from 25 yards, his third in eight days. “We always knew that he’s capable of scoring goals out of nowhere,” said Hürzeler. “He just has this intrinsic motivation of really improving every day. He gets more and more professional, he understands the demands from the Premier League more, he understands our demands.” Ed Aarons

Match report: Brighton 3-0 Arsenal

Match report: Bournemouth 0-1 Liverpool

Match report: Fulham 1-1 Manchester United

Match report: Leeds 0-0 Crystal Palace

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