The Premier League have confirmed that Manchester City has been found ‘guilty of all charges related to serious breaches’ of its financial rules – and that the club fiddled its books by around £900m.On Friday, Daily Mail Sport reported how City had been found guilty of a series of breaches over a nine-year, glittering period in its history, in a verdict which sent shockwaves through football and opened the door to huge penalties including possible expulsion.However, there has been no official comment on the findings of an independent panel who oversaw a hearing that concluded in December 2024.That has now, dramatically changed. In a lengthy statement, the Premier League say City arranged ‘sham contracts (which misrepresented the true agreement between the parties) with a number of its commercial partners, as well as relying on “sham” agreements with others, to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs’. It also says the club falsely altered the financial picture at the Etihad to the tune of £900m.The Premier League say the panel found that City had ‘filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators’. It added that the club was ‘significantly in breach of both the Premier League’s and UEFA’s spending limits’ during the time period in question, 2009-2018 when it won eight major trophies. The Premier League has confirmed that Manchester City have been found guilty of ‘all charges related to serious breaches’ of the league’s financial regulations Deals with a number of sponsors were part of ‘a disguised funding scheme, whereby those companies were only required to pay a portion of the relevant sponsorship fees’, the Premier League added, saying that ‘the remainder was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), which owned the club’.The Core Decision released on Tuesday confirmed that ADUG had in some financial years contributed more than quadruple the amount paid by sponsors to the total recorded sponsorship fees. During the 2013-14 season, for example, Man City had recorded £127.5m in total sponsorship fees – but the club was found to have received just £16m from sponsors and a whopping £111.5m from ADUG’s disguised funding scheme. The panel also found further ‘sham’ arrangements, funded by ADUG, which allowed City to record lower operating expenses that it incurred, along with a ‘sham’ circular arrangement with Fordham, an entity that purchased the club’s players’ image rights, that was funded by ADUG.The Premier League say that revenues were inflated and costs reduced to the tune of £900m in an attempt to comply with spending rules. The result was that the club ‘filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators’.Had City reported accurately ‘it would have been in breach of both the League’s and UEFA’s spending limits by a very substantial amount’.The panel also found that City committed multiple breaches of its duties of co-operation and good faith in that it failed to assist the Premier League’s four-year investigation, triggered by the emergence of club emails obtained by a hacker. Indeed, City had ‘made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the PL investigation’.The Core Decision even went as far as describing some of the witnesses for the club as ‘dishonest’. ‘That evidence given by a number of important factual witnesses called to give evidence on behalf of the Club was false in a number of key respects,’ the decision stated, adding: ‘Certain of those factual witnesses had given evidence at the hearing that they knew to be untrue’. Richard Masters, Chief Executive of the Premier League, said: ‘The core decision establishes the facts of what happened at Manchester City during this period. It details how the club systematically broke Premier League Rules for nearly a decade.’It also vindicates the Premier League’s decision to pursue this case against Manchester City. While the process to date has been both long and difficult, the League has remained determined that the facts be established independently.’It is a key responsibility of the Premier League to ensure that the Rules, approved by the clubs themselves, are upheld to protect the integrity of the competition. It is paramount that the League remains competitive and fair for all clubs and for the fans. We take that role extremely seriously.’This disciplinary case, and this decision, are the most significant in Premier League history. There are elements of the case that remain to be decided, including, importantly, what sanction must follow for these breaches. 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.’In a statement released a short time later, City said it was ‘disappointed and surprised’ and referred to the ‘opinion of the Premier League Commission’.It added: ‘The club 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, relating to this case. The club will therefore be relentless, and where necessary proactive, in any and all appropriate regulatory and legal forums.‘The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements uncompleted. Manchester City 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.‘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.‘The club is obviously restricted in what it can say further until all future proceedings are complete.’City have until Friday to appeal. Premier League CEO Richard Masters claimed that the commission’s verdict had ‘vindicated’ the league’s decision to pursue the chargesMan City were first charged with the 115 breaches in February 2023. While that totemic number stuck, the figure – as they subsequently corrected – was actually 130.Of those, 54 were charges of ‘failure to provide accurate and up-to-date financial information’ while there were 14 charges of ‘failure to provide accurate financial reports for player and manager compensation’. Both sets related to alleged offences between 2009 and 2018 (2009-2018), an eight-year period which saw the club win four Premier League titles, the FA Cup, and three League Cup competitions. There were also five charges of ‘failure to comply with UEFA’s regulations, including Financial Fair Play Regulations’ and seven charges of breaching the Premier League’s profit and sustainability regulations (PSR) between 2015 and 2018. There were also 35 counts of failure to co-operate with Premier League investigations between 2018 and 2023. The hearing into the 130 breaches began last September at London’s International Dispute Resolution Centre, with the Premier League sparing no expense and enlisting KCs Adam Lewis and Andrew Hunter to take its case.Since last week’s news broke, former players from Man City’s rivals have suggested that they might be awarded honours won by the club during the period under scrutiny. With the sanction Man City will receive still pending, Rio Ferdinand called for the club to be stripped of its titles – including their first Premier League victory in 2011-12 which denied his side, crosstown rivals Man United, the league’s top spot on the final day of the season. ‘Next time (former Man City player) Joleon (Lescott)’s on, he better bring my b****y medal,’ Ferdinand said on Rio Ferdinand Presents. ‘If you’re found guilty, then I think you should have to give the medals back. ‘When I see Joleon, I’m actually going to go to his house and just say, “Listen, hand it over. Hand it over”. You can’t really sit there and say that you were champions, can you? Or you won that or you won that.’Well, they’re not going to have to pay any fines. They’re not going to get relegated. Just hand over the trophy. Hand over the medals, hand over the trophy. Simple as.’His then-team-mate Wayne Rooney has taken a different view, stating on Tuesday morning that he would refuse the second-hand title, but instead look to see the club relegated for their breaches. ‘When I see team-mates saying “I want a medal”, I’m happy with the five I’ve won,’ Rooney said on his Stick To United podcast. ‘I wouldn’t want this one. ‘Should (the players) get it stripped for what the owners have done? Yeah maybe, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable accepting it.’ Instead, he added: ‘I’d put them in the lowest league they can go in and then put restrictions on them in terms of how much money they can spend for the next three or four seasons.’ READ MORE: The ugly stories around Man City’s ‘warfare’ over the 115 charges: The army of lawyers, the brick through the window, the tracker on a car, tension, paranoia and journalists targeted for reporting the truth, as revealed by IAN HERBERT