Richard Masters
Role at the time: Chief executive of the Premier League, in the league's published statement
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."
“The core decision establishes the facts of what happened at Manchester City during this period. It details how the club systematically broke Premier League Rules for nearly a decade. It also vindicates the Premier League’s decision to pursue this case against Manchester City.”
The Premier League's statement of September 29, 2026 announcing the commission's findings, with a link to the redacted core decision. It summarizes the findings, gives a quotation from chief executive Richard Masters, says sanction will be decided at a separate private hearing and says City has until Friday, October 2 to appeal. The page shows a date but no time.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Why we used this label
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, Masters presents the decision as establishing the facts and says it vindicates the league's decision to bring the case. That asserts and endorses the finding, so we used Condemned. The closest competing label is Mixed or conditional, because the statement says elements of the case remain to be decided, but those elements are the sanction and the appeal, not the finding.