In 2010, Manchester City was about to set a record no club wants.

Transcript

1. In 2010, Manchester City was about to set a record no club wants:
2. the biggest one-season loss in English Premier League history.
3. It didn't.
4. On Tuesday, a disciplinary commission's ruling said how.
5. When a club's owner puts money in, it doesn't count as income.
6. It doesn't make a loss any smaller.
7. Money from a sponsor does.
8. And UEFA, which runs European football, was planning limits on losses.
9. So, the commission found,
10. City signed sponsorship deals priced well above their worth.
11. On those deals, the sponsors paid about £1 in 8.
12. The owner, Abu Dhabi United Group, it found, secretly paid the rest.
13. And City recorded the whole fee as sponsorship income.
14. Its 2010 accounts showed a loss of £118 million,
15. under Chelsea's record of £140 million.
16. Without the owner's hidden payments,
17. the commission said, City would have broken it.
18. The payments ran in all nine seasons examined, 2009 to 2018.
19. The commission found City inflated its income by more than £830 million.
20. The owner also paid some club costs, and funded one more deal.
21. The Premier League puts the total above £900 million.
22. Counted properly, the commission found,
23. City later broke UEFA's loss limits and the Premier League's,
24. by "a very substantial amount".
25. It said the club "clearly intended" to get around the league's rules.
26. City's case: the owner paid none of it; Abu Dhabi's government helped the sponsors.
27. The commission called that concocted after the event.
28. It found every charge but one proven, and some of City's witnesses dishonest.
29. City says the ruling has clear errors, and will appeal.
30. In 2020, UEFA banned City from Europe for overstating sponsorship income.
31. On appeal, sport's court of arbitration lifted the ban and cut the fine,
32. finding most alleged breaches unproven or too old to punish.
33. This appeal goes to a Premier League appeal board instead.
34. The punishment will be decided in private.
35. Everton, which broke only the loss limit,
36. went £19.5 million over it and lost 6 points.
37. How far over City went hasn't been published.
38. The rules allow an unlimited fine, a points deduction,
39. even a recommendation to expel the club.
40. They don't mention stripping City's three league titles from those years.
41. The BBC reports little appetite for that inside the league.
42. But the rules allow any other penalty the commission thinks fit.
43. The commission hasn't decided yet.