Jamie Carragher is an English football analyst and former professional footballer who spent his whole career at Liverpool, making 737 appearances and serving as vice-captain for ten years. He won the UEFA Champions League with Liverpool and earned 38 senior England caps. Since retiring in 2013 he has worked as a pundit for Sky Sports, as part of CBS Sports' Champions League coverage and as football columnist for The Telegraph.
Case
An independent commission found Manchester City arranged "sham" sponsorship contracts to disguise owner funding between 2009/10 and 2017/18. City denies it, says the decision is unsafe and will appeal. As of October 1, 2026, no sanction has been set.
Role at the time: Sky Sports pundit and former Liverpool player, in a Sky Sports interview
Response to this claim
The Premier League said on September 29, 2026 that an independent commission found that between the 2009/10 and 2017/18 seasons Manchester City arranged "sham" contracts with a number of its commercial partners as part of a disguised funding scheme, in which the sponsors were required to pay only a portion of the relevant fees and Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd, which owned the club, funded the remainder, and that "by its conduct the club clearly intended to circumvent the PL Rules."
“But I'm shocked, but also not surprised with what's going on right now. And the reason I'm not surprised that Manchester City have had a guilty, because I always felt they were guilty, just for two simple reasons, really. Just the fact that it would be impossible for Manchester City to ever have the commercial revenue of Liverpool, Manchester United or Real Madrid. They said that for years, they had that type of income coming in. It's impossible for that to ever happen, no matter how successful Manchester City are. And number two, the fact that they said, as they have said, I think yesterday, and they've continually said over this period of the last few years, that they've done nothing wrong, you know, they've got irrefutable evidence. I mean, any, you know, man and his dog in this country or football fan knows if you were charged by the police and you had irrefutable evidence, it would be over within a day or a week. This has dragged on for years, so this idea that there's nothing gone on and it's dragged on this long just tells you that there was always something there.”
Relative to the proposition that City used sponsorship contracts the commission described as shams, and related arrangements, to misstate its finances and circumvent the Premier League's financial rules, as the commission found, Carragher says he always felt City were guilty and gives reasons drawn from the club's revenue and the length of the case. That endorses the finding, so we used Condemned. The closest competing label is Mixed or conditional, because he reasons from the club's conduct rather than from the decision's text, but he states his conclusion without conditions.
Statement dates: September 30, 2026
Statement dates: September 30, 2026
