Wayne Rooney
Role at the time: Former Manchester United and England captain and former club manager, speaking on the Stick to United podcast
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."
“And again going back to they've cheated, take them off them. That's fine, I've no problem with that. But to turn around and say, right, there's a medal, I just wouldn't feel comfortable taking it. I'd be comfortable with them getting it took off them, but I wouldn't be comfortable accepting a medal for finishing second.”
Wayne Rooney's appearance on Stick to United, published at 07:00 UTC on September 29, 2026. That was before the Premier League published the decision, and Rooney was reacting to the reports of September 25. The passage quoted follows the spoken words in the video.
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, Rooney accepts the reported outcome as the premise ("they've cheated") and says he has no problem with the titles being taken off City. That endorses the finding, so we used Condemned. The closest competing label is Mixed or conditional, because his main point is about whether he would accept a retrospective medal, but he states no condition on the finding.