GUILTY: Man City Found Guilty on 114 of 115 Charges, Now Comes the Punishment.

The wait is over. After years of legal fog, Manchester City have reportedly been found guilty on 114 of the 115 Premier League charges hanging over the club, and the biggest regulatory case in English football history is about to get uglier.

The news broke on Thursday through The Athletic’s David Ornstein. An independent commission has sided with the Premier League on all but one charge. That verdict comes more than three-and-a-half years after the charges were filed in February 2023, and nearly eight years after the investigation first began.

There’s one big catch: nothing is official yet. The Premier League has not published the ruling, no sanction has been set, and City are expected to appeal.

What City Were Charged With

The case covers nine seasons, from 2009-10 to 2017-18, and it goes to the heart of how City were built after the 2008 Abu Dhabi takeover.

The league accused the club of:

• Failing to provide accurate financial information, including sponsorship revenue and operating costs (54 charges fall under this category alone)
• Hiding the true details of payments to managers and players
• Breaching UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules
• Breaking the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules
• Failing to cooperate with the league’s investigation

The three-person commission heard the case over 12 weeks between September and December 2024. Then it went quiet for almost two years.

City’s Response: Unchanged

City aren’t budging. The club says the process is still ongoing and confidential, and that its position hasn’t changed since February 2023. It has always insisted it has a body of “irrefutable evidence” proving its innocence, and it has previously suggested the league’s board has not acted as a fair and independent regulator.

In other words, expect a long legal war.

What Punishment Could City Face?

This is the question every rival fan is asking. Sanctions are yet to be decided, but the options on the table have always ranged from heavy fines to points deductions, and even relegation in the most extreme scenario.

The precedent is already there. Everton and Nottingham Forest were both docked points for breaching profitability and sustainability rules, and those cases involved far less than 114 proven breaches.

Stripping titles is a more complicated question. City won the league in 2012, 2014 and 2018, all inside the period covered by the charges.

What It Means for Punters

Until the sanction is confirmed, and then survives an appeal, City’s current campaign carries a cloud of uncertainty. Any points deduction could reshape the title race and the top-four markets overnight.

For now, be careful before making long-term bets on City in the outright markets. The on-pitch picture and the courtroom picture are two very different things right now.

The Verdict

After years of “irrefutable evidence” and legal delays, the commission has spoken, and it has not been kind to City. But this is round one, not the final whistle. The punishment and the appeal will decide whether 114 guilty findings end up being a slap on the wrist or the biggest fall in Premier League history.

Stay with XScore for updates as the sanctions are announced.