Man City's FFP case: explaining the 115 charges

Football finance experts break down what Manchester City have been accused of by the Premier League.

Transcript

00:00What Manchester City are being accused of is effectively corporate fraud over a nine-year

00:07period. They've been lying to the Premier League in relation to their finances.

00:17City have effectively been accused of three things by the Premier League.

00:21First of all, they've been artificially inflating the money coming into the club.

00:26So they've been claiming that they've received money from sponsors but actually it was handouts

00:33from the owner. The second accusation is that City have been paying people off the grid. The most

00:41high-profile accusation is that Roberto Mancini was being paid around about two million pounds a year

00:48by City and he was being paid a further two million pounds by a football club in Abu Dhabi for four days

00:55worth a year. People say well why does that matter? Well because under the cost control rules you're

01:01allowed to lose 105 million pounds over three years. The third accusation against Manchester City

01:08is that they've not cooperated with the Premier League. The City's response to this is, oh hold on,

01:16all of these charges are coming through the fact that somebody's hacked our email system.

01:21Why would we cooperate with anybody who's trying to charge us on the basis of

01:27hacking our IT system? The sanctions range from financial penalties in terms of fines to sporting

01:33penalties in terms of deductions or relegation or stripping of titles. So all of those things are kind of

01:39within the arc of what the Premier League can do. The biggest question is whether they will do.

01:46We're looking at a cost for both parties in excess of a hundred million pounds in terms of legal and

01:53witness fees. That money's got to come out of somebody's pocket. You know if City lose it will

01:59have to come out of theirs. If City win all the other clubs in the Premier League they'll be on the hook for it.