Man City are at the centre of one of the biggest scandals in football history after an independent commission found they had broken Premier League rules over a nine-year period.
The club have been found guilty on all charges of breaching the top-flight’s financial regulations between 2009 and 2018, and the majority of charges relating to their failure to cooperate with the investigation.
The eye-popping revelation to come out of the decision is that City lied about their financial statements to the tune of £920 million. They did this by arranging ‘sham’ contracts with a number of its commercial partners to to artificially inflate the club’s revenues by £854m and reduce its costs by £66m.
This allowed them to spend an enormous amount of money on signings that they otherwise would not have been able to under the Premier League’s Financial Fair Play rules, which are intended to limit spending.
During this period, City signed a number of footballers who would go on to achieve great success and build the foundations for their dominance under Pep Guardiola.
While not every player who came through the door at the Etihad made a positive impact (Roque Santa Cruz, Wilfried Bony, Eliaquim Mangala, for instance), they bought many who went on to become club legends. The likes of Yaya Toure, Sergio Aguero, Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva.
It puts a massive asterisk next to their many accomplishments, and that’s before there is even a punishment handed down.
Every signing Man City made in the nine years they cheated:
- 2009/10: Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor, Joleon Lescott, Roque Santa Cruz, Kolo Toure, Gareth Barry
- 2010/11: Edin Dzeko, Yaya Toure, Mario Balotelli, David Silva, Aleksandar Kolarov, James Milner, Jerome Boateng
- 2011/12: Sergio Aguero, Samir Nasri, Stefan Savic
- 2012/13: Javi Garcia, Matija Nastasic, Jack Rodwell
- 2013/14: Fernandinho, Stevan Jovetic, Alvaro Negredo, Jesus Navas
- 2014/15: Eliaquim Mangala, Wilfried Bony, Fernando
- 2015/16: Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling, Nicolas Otamendi, Fabian Delph
- 2016/17: John Stones, Leroy Sane, Gabriel Jesus, Ilkay Gundogan, Nolito, Claudio Bravo
- 2017/18: Aymeric Laporte, Benjamin Mendy, Kyle Walker, Bernardo Silva, Ederson, Danilo, Douglas Luiz
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