What sham agreements did they have? Who are the parties involved? Were any players involved?
Manchester City's sham agreements fell into three distinct schemes, all bankrolled by the club's owner, Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG).
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spio.comThe sponsorship inflation scheme
The commission found that City arranged sham commercial deals with a number of its sponsors, which were part of a disguised funding scheme whereby those companies were only required to pay a portion of the relevant sponsorship fees, with the remainder secretly funded by ADUG, which owned the club. The effect was simple: a sponsorship that was genuinely worth, say, £8 million appeared on the books as being worth £50 to £60 million, because Abu Dhabi was quietly topping it up. Sponsors debated for years as having potentially understated connections to City's ownership include Etihad Airways, Etisalat (now e&, the UAE telecoms giant), Aldar Properties and others, given their ties to Abu Dhabi.
The operating expenses scheme
Further sham arrangements, also funded by ADUG, were entered into to enable the club to record lower operating expenses than it actually incurred. In other words, City was spending more than its books showed, and Abu Dhabi was covering the gap off the record, making the club look leaner and more financially self-sufficient than it was.
The Fordham image-rights scheme
A sham circular arrangement was also found with Fordham, an entity that purchased the club's players' image rights, and that arrangement was also funded by ADUG. Image rights deals are a common part of modern football contracts: a club pays a company (often controlled by a player or their agent) for the right to use the player's name and likeness commercially. The commission found City's arrangement with Fordham was not a genuine arm's-length deal but another vehicle for moving money in a way that distorted the club's true financial picture.
Were players involved?
Yes, indirectly. The violations included hiding payments that supplemented the salaries of managers and players. There were 14 charges related to failing to provide accurate details for player and manager payments between 2009 and 2018, including breaches connected to former manager Roberto Mancini's contracts and alleged illicit payments to midfielder Yaya Touré. Among the specific accusations was the use of a secret shadow account to double Mancini's wages. The players themselves are not accused of wrongdoing; the allegation is that the club concealed what it was paying them from regulators.
The bottom line
The purpose of City's schemes was to artificially inflate the club's revenues and reduce its costs by more than £900 million during the affected period, to appear to comply with financial rules. The commission concluded that "by its conduct the club clearly intended to circumvent the PL Rules." City has said the verdict contains "clear material errors of law, principle and fact" and intends to appeal.
Follow-ups
Who is Yaya Touré?Yaya Touré is an Ivorian midfielder widely regarded as one of the greatest African footballers of all time, and one of the central figures in Manchester City's transformation from perennial underachievers into Premier League champions.
Yaya Touré is an Ivorian midfielder widely regarded as one of the greatest African footballers of all time, and one of the central figures in Manchester City's transformation from perennial underachievers into Premier League champions.
Quick facts
- Full name: Gnégnéri Yaya Touré
- Born: Bouaké, Ivory Coast
- Position: Central midfielder
- Height: 6 ft 2 in
- International caps: 101 appearances for the Ivory Coast national team
- Current role: Head coach of Slovan Bratislava
Their story
Touré joined the ASEC Mimosas youth academy in 1996 at the age of 13. He originally wanted to be a striker but was pushed back to midfield when playing for professional teams. From Ivory Coast, his path took him through Belgium, Ukraine, Greece and France before Europe's elite came calling.
While at Monaco, Barcelona came calling, and Touré signed for the Spanish giants for a relatively paltry $10 million. He scooped seven major honours there, including a La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League treble in the 2008/09 season. In July 2010, Touré signed for City for a fee reported to be £24 million. He was given the squad number 42, the reverse of the 24 he had worn at Barcelona, and was teamed with his older brother Kolo Touré.
What they achieved
A series of successful goals in the 2010-11 season, including winning goals in the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United and the final against Stoke City, culminated in the end of a 35-year wait for a major trophy. The 2011-12 season saw Touré described as "dominant," a key player in a team that secured City's first league championship in 44 years.
One of the greatest African players of all time, Touré was voted African Footballer of the Year for 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. He scored 79 goals in 316 appearances to help City win three Premier League titles and the FA Cup.
His connection to the charges
This is where his story ties back to what we've been discussing. Among those mentioned in the leaked documents is Dimitri Seluk, an agent who at the time represented Touré. The documents showed contracts between ADUG and a company called DS Management Ltd, owned by Seluk, in relation to the player's image rights. Those contracts appear to show details of payments directly from ADUG, when regulations state clubs should be responsible for such payments. In other words, the allegation is that Abu Dhabi was paying Touré's image rights fees directly, off City's books, in the same pattern as the broader sham arrangements we covered earlier.
Touré himself has distanced himself from any wrongdoing. He told The Times of Seluk, "He did a lot of bad things," having separated from the agent by that point. Seluk, for his part, has denied any wrongdoing, telling The Guardian, "Everything was transparent, there was nothing on the back side."
After City
Touré fell out of favour under Pep Guardiola and was released at the end of the 2017-18 campaign, after which he had spells at Olympiacos and in the Chinese Super League with Qingdao Huanghai. He has since moved into management and is currently head coach of Slovan Bratislava.
Manchester City has been found guilty of 114 out of 115 charges of financial misconduct by an independent Premier League commission, in one of the biggest scandals in English football history.
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