Man City hearing: Premier League 115 charges trial to start Monday

In June this year, a Portuguese computer hacker under witness protection, Rui Pinto, reportedly told a conference that he was in possession of “millions of documents” that could be relevant to the city’s case.

Pinto was well known to the game’s authorities. The 34-year-old was the man behind the Football Leaks website, which has released confidential transfer and contract information about football.

Despite always claiming to be a whistleblower, he was given a four-year suspended sentence by a Lisbon court last year after finding him guilty of attempted extortion, illegal access to data and breach of correspondence. But his threat to release more information – confirmed by his lawyer – was a timely reminder of the continuing role of one of the key figures in this remarkable story.

In 2018, German magazine Der Spiegel alleged that City had manipulated contracts to circumvent UEFA rules. According to the magazine, the source was a whistleblower they named as ‘John’ – the pseudonym under which Pinto had created Football Leaks.

Der Spiegel published leaked documents including emails allegedly sent between top City executives (some of whom still work at City Football Group) over several seasons following the Abu Dhabi takeover of the club in 2008.

They alleged that it showed the club had inflated sponsorship revenues from state-owned airline Etihad and state-controlled telecommunications company Etisalat by disguising direct investments from its holding company (Mansour’s Abu Dhabi United Group, or ADUG) as sponsorship revenue by funneling the funds through the companies’ accounts.

This, it was claimed, was a way to comply with the ‘financial fair play’ (FFP) rules introduced by UEFA in 2011, and the Profit and Sustainability (PSR) rules introduced by the Premier League in 2012, which limit the losses clubs can make.

Further allegations of misreporting of financial information followed, based on documents alleging secret ‘off-the-books’ payments were made to then-manager Roberto Mancini via consultancy fees from an Abu Dhabi club. More money was also given to players than was officially recorded in the accounts, resulting in recorded expenditure being lower than it actually was.

City, which has always maintained that ADUG is a private fund and not part of the state, declined to comment on Der Spiegel’s revelations, saying the leaked emails had been obtained illegally and were an “attempt to damage the club’s reputation”.

City – along with the companies involved – strongly denied that they had breached financial regulations. But that did not stop both UEFA and the Premier League from launching investigations as a result.

City were previously fined millions of pounds by UEFA in 2014 as part of a settlement after it was found to have breached FFP rules. The rules were intended to make the sport more sustainable, but critics argue they protect the historically biggest clubs by restricting investment from rivals, particularly those with Middle Eastern backers.

In early 2020, the club were then hit with a two-year ban from European club competitions after it was found to have committed “serious breaches” of the governing body’s rules. An independent panel of UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body concluded that City had “exaggerated its sponsorship income in its accounts… submitted to UEFA between 2012 and 2016”, adding that the club had “failed to cooperate with the investigation”.

The city criticized what it called a “damaging” decision, following a “flawed and continually leaked process,” and pointed to a “comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence to support its position.” It appealed.

A few months later, they succeeded: the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) overturned the ban. UEFA said in a statement that Cas had found “insufficient conclusive evidence” that City had disguised owner funding as sponsorship. The statement also said that many of the alleged breaches of the rules were “time-barred” because they fell outside the legal five-year period for prosecution.

Cas ruled that “on the basis of the evidence before it… the majority of the panel is not satisfied that the arrangements discussed in the leaked emails were actually carried out. There is not sufficient evidence in the file to establish that there were in fact arrangements between (City, Mansour ADUG and Etihad) or that Mansour and/or ADUG directly financed any part of Etihad’s sponsorship commitments. In the absence of a proven link… the majority of the panel finds that UEFA’s theory of disguised equity financing remains unfounded.”

Cas revealed that Sheikh Mansour had written a letter to the court insisting that he “had not authorised ADUG to make any payments to Etihad, Etisalat or any of their affiliates in connection with their sponsorship of MCFC”.

However, it was also ruled that City had committed a ‘serious offence’ by failing to cooperate with UEFA’s investigation, and the original £25m fine was therefore reduced to £8m.

For more than two years, the saga seemed to be at a standstill, but behind the scenes the Premier League’s investigation continued. There was a dramatic glimpse of this in July 2021 when a High Court judge revealed that the Premier League had effectively accused City of delaying tactics by refusing to hand over documents, and had ordered the club to do so.

And then, in early 2023, came the most sensational twist in this saga yet, when City, on their way to a third of four consecutive titles and their first Champions League triumph, were confronted with that string of allegations, which relate to each of the years since the club was bought by Sheikh Mansour.