'There's no penalty strong enough!': Former Man City chairman David Bernstein sends warning after club found guilty of £900m 'sham' in 'worse than expected' verdict

Former Manchester City chairman David Bernstein has admitted that confirmation that his old club is guilty of the most serious breaches of the Premier League's financial rules on Tuesday is 'worse than expected'.

Man City were found to have disguised payments totalling over £900m over a nine-year period during which time the club won nine trophies, including their first-ever Premier League title in a damning 40-page verdict handed out by the league on Tuesday.

Following a lengthy investigation by an Independent Commission, City were also deemed to have failed to co-operate with the Premier League - with witnesses called on behalf of the club accused of 'dishonesty' during the hearing itself.

After Daily Mail Sport first reported that the charges had been upheld on Friday, Bernstein had suggested that the club should be stripped of its titles if guilty.

But in the wake of Tuesday's bombshell ruling release, he was left aghast and wondering if there could be a penalty 'strong enough' to sanction the club he has supported since boyhood.

'We knew it wasn't going to be good, but it looks worse than I thought it would do,' Bernstein said of the Premier League's incendiary statement on talkSPORT. 'I can't go through all the charges individually, but they include producing false documentation and duplicate contracts and so on, which has been done systematically over a number of years - you can't have anything much more severe than that.

Former Manchester City chairman David Bernstein has admitted that the verdict on his old club was 'worse than expected'

Chief executive Ferran Soriano (left, with chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak) has doubled down on the club's 'innocence'

'I would be very careful with the language I use, but if this was a commercial situation, I would say this is very close to something fraudulent.

'The wording couldn't be more damning, and I've got to give some credit to the Premier League and the people who did all this for coming up with such a detailed scenario,' he added, stressing that it would not have been easy, but that it 'had to be done'.

Following the release of the Premier League's public verdict, Man City responded with their own statement which stated they had been 'surprised and disappointed' by what the club referred to as the 'opinion' of the commission.

In a video circulated to Man City's 1,000-strong staff, chief executive Ferran Soriano railed against the Premier League's 'conspiracy theories' against City and vowed that the club would stop at nothing to defend its innocence.

Man City have until Friday, October 2 to appeal before a decision is taken over how the club will be sanctioned, but Bernstein remained convinced that a drawn-out appeal process followed by a heavy punishment would represent the worst-possible scenario.

'If it drags on for a year or two, heaven forbid, I think that would be the worst thing for everybody,' he continued. 'But all I would say is that (a punitive financial fine) is not sufficient now.

'If these charges stand now, and let's say the appeal does not happen or fails, then I'm afraid for the club I love, that they've got to come out of the Premier League. This is beyond awful.

'I can't think my penalty is strong enough for this. This is absolutely terrible.'

Bernstein also added that he would be interested to see if those at the very top of the Man City hierarchy would be penalised.

'The directors of the club, including the chief executive, who's been there for years and worked through this period, are responsible for the running of the club in every respect,' he noted. 'If this was a public company, I think the directors, with something as serious as this, (would) have to stand down or be suspended, pending the outcome.'

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said in a statement that he believed the commission's verdict had 'vindicated' the league's pursuit of the charges, a process which began nearly three years ago.

‘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,’ he said. ‘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.’

The panel found 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 added that the panel, whose hearing concluded in December 2024, had found that the club had falsely altered the financial picture at the Etihad to the tune of £900m.

The Premier League said that City was actually ‘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.

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 statement added, saying that ‘the remainder was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), which owned the club’.

The panel also found further ‘sham’ arrangements, funded by ADUG, which allowed City to record lower operating expenses than 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 result was that the club had ‘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.

Instead, City had ‘made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the Premier League investigation’.

In Man City's statement shared in the wake of the release, the club claimed that it had 'irrefutable evidence' that proved its innocence.

‘The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements uncompleted,' the statement continued. '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.’

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