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The 'Financial Doping' Scandal in Manchester

Writer: Morgan McBride
Morgan McBride
Sep 30
6 min read

The English football club, Manchester City, has been found guilty of 114 out of 115 charges related to financial wrongdoing by the Premier League.





On Tuesday, September 29th, 2026, the Premier League confirmed earlier reports that Manchester City had been found guilty of 114 of 115 charges of breaching the league's financial rules over a nine-year period. Such charges stated that the football club boosted its income by over 900 million Pounds between 2009 and 2018. An independent commission conducted extensive investigations into Manchester City’s artificial inflation of their finances, which circumvented the Premier League’s financial spending limits for all football clubs. Bypassing the league’s fair play rules, which stipulated that clubs spend what they earn from deals that are assessed as being at a legitimate market rate, Manchester City submitted misleading information to the Premier League regarding their finances.


“Man City received £949.94 million in commercial income from Abu Dhabi sponsors between 2009-2018. Only £119.25 million came from sponsors — the remaining £830.69 million were ‘Tagged Sums’ paid by Abu Dhabi United Group (City’s owners).” — Mark Ogden

As one of the largest scandals in English soccer history, if not global soccer history, the schemes and scandals linked to Manchester City will have a notable impact on the club, English football, and football fans worldwide.


* Note for our American readers: we will be using ‘football’ in place of ‘soccer’ throughout this article.




Manchester City F.C.


Based in Manchester, England, Manchester City Football Club competes in the Premier League, the top level of professional English football. The club was founded in 1880 by members of St Mark’s Church, a move that eventually led to the club's success. Man City has now won thirty-eight major honors, including eight Premier League titles.


Sergio Agüero, Vincent Kompany, Kevin De Bruyne, Yaya Touré, Erling Haaland, David Silva, and many more football greats have worn a Manchester City jersey over the years.





In 2008, the Abu Dhabi United Group bought a controlling stake in Manchester City F.C. from the club’s previous ownership. The £200m ($250m) ownership takeover made Man City the richest football club in the world at the time. Sheikh Mansour ibn Zayed Al Nahyan, owner of the Abu Dhabi United Group, invested heavily in the team, which led to an uptick in its success.


The 2010-2011 season saw Manchester City win the FA Cup, the team’s first major trophy after the ownership transition. Their star-studded team continued on to win the 2011-2012 Premier League season on the final day of the season. Man City’s winning energy grew under the team’s new manager, Pep Guardiola, who led the team from 2016 to early 2026. The ‘Pep Guardiola era’ drove the club through triumphant seasons in English and European football throughout his tenure. Winning 71 percent of their games over the ten seasons under Pep, Manchester City became a staple of competitive, dynamic football in recent memory. Exorbitant spending on players after 2008 became a notable component of Man City’s story. The lengthy list of superstars cost the club more than two billion euros over the years. Players like Yaya Touré, David Silva, and Mario Balotelli joined the club in 2009 for £24m each, starkly contrasting with that season's average basic wage of £1.16m.


In recent years, leaked emails and investigations into Manchester City’s finances, which began in November 2018, have clouded their triumphant success.




The 'Financial Doping' Scandal in Manchester


Der Spiegel, a German newspaper, published documents from Football Leaks that alluded to Manchester City’s potential inflation of the value of its sponsorship deals. The Football Leaks website released a detailed arsenal of confidential Man City internal emails and other club documents detailing conversations about sponsorship deals and payments. Rui Pinto, the hacker and whistleblower behind Football Leaks, sparked the extensive investigations surrounding Manchester City.


According to Antonio Varela, a Portuguese journalist, the information from Rui Pinto needed to be published, even though it was initially obtained illegally. The leaked documents included a wide range of information, including files involving FC Porto, Benfica, Neymar, and others in global football. Even though Rui Pinto spent many years in and out of court for his crimes, for better or worse, his work led to the unraveling of financial doping within the English Premier League.


In May 2019, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) launched an investigation into Manchester City over an alleged breach of financial fair play rules, as the team competed in the UEFA Champions League. Their investigation resulted in a two-year Champions League ban and a thirty-million-euro fine for Man City for “serious breaches of the league’s regulations from 2012 to 2016. Manchester City swiftly appealed the verdict through the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which eliminated the ban and reduced the fine to ten million euros. The ruling further stated that the club had been cleared of “disguising equity funds as sponsorship contributions”, yet the club did “fail to cooperate with UEFA authorities”.


Nevertheless, in February 2023, the Premier League charged Man City with more than 100 breaches of the league’s financial rules over a ten-year period.


The Independent Commission investigating Manchester City uncovered that the following issues occurred between the 2009/10 and 2017/18 seasons:


  • Man City arranged ‘sham’ contracts that misrepresented the actual agreement between the club and some of its commercial partners.

  • The ‘sham’ contracts also artificially inflated the club’s revenues and reduced its costs.

  • Manchester City filed misstated accounts and concealed its true financial data from auditors and football regulators.

  • The club operated in a manner that breached the Premier League and UEFA’s spending limits.

  • Man City additionally committed multiple breaches of its duty to cooperate with the Premier League’s investigation.





The covert funding scheme at Manchester City created ‘sham’ commercial deals with sponsors that required the sponsor to pay only a portion of the agreed-upon fee, while Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd. (ADUG) paid the remaining portion of the sponsorship fee to the club. The investigation also said ADUG funded ‘sham’ agreements that allowed the club to report lower operating expenses than it actually incurred. Delving further into the scheme, ADUG also funded a circular ‘sham’ arrangement with Fordham, an entity that purchased the club’s players' image rights. Overall, Manchester City and its owners at ADUG ran a decade-long scheme that artificially bolstered their finances by over 830 million Pounds and misreported them to the leagues for their own benefit.


Manchester City has the opportunity to appeal this ruling until Friday, October 2nd. However, many experts expect the Premier League verdict to stand, raising questions about what sanctions await Manchester.




The Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment (ADUG)


The private equity company based in the United Arab Emirates has been a centerpiece of Manchester City F.C. in recent years. ADUG’s owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is a member of the Abu Dhabi Royal Family and the Vice President of the UAE.


ADUG owns an estimated 78 to 81 percent of City Football Group. This global organization controls Manchester City F.C., Mumbai City F.C., Melbourne City F.C., New York City F.C., and eight other international football clubs. Newton Investment and Development LLC has been managing the City Football Group since July 2021. However, that is not a substantial shift, because Sheikh Mansour fully owns Newton Investment and Development LLC. Beyond its stake in the football world, ADUG also owns an extensive portfolio of properties across the United Arab Emirates and Manchester, England.



Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (left), Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan (middle), and Khaldoon Al Mubarak (right). Photo Credit
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (left), Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan (middle), and Khaldoon Al Mubarak (right). Photo Credit


The Al Nahyan family dynasty has led the Abu Dhabi emirate, one of the UAE's seven emirates, for decades. Alongside his extensive career in business and finance, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan notably purchased Manchester City F.C. in 2008. Sheikh Mansour has also remained intertwined with Abu Dhabi’s political ecosystem, serving as both a gatekeeper to the president and the head of the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department.


Khaldoon Al Mubarak is the Founding Chairman of City Football Group and has also been Chairman of Manchester City F.C. since 2008. Beyond football, he is closely involved with the boards of Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Emirates Global Aluminum, Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, New York University, and the AI company G42.


Overall, Abu Dhabi United Group and the extensive connections between Abu Dhabi's political elite and Manchester City have long been a topic of intense conversation. The current ‘financial doping’ scandal has harmed Premier League football in ways we might not fully understand for some time. Yet as this unfolds, it remains critical to recognize how obstructing regulations can dismantle anything from a football club to a democracy (and much more in between).




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