Leaked emails reveal Manchester City received payments from Abu Dhabi

Emails have been released that appear to show the state of Abu Dhabi facilitating payments to Manchester City, reigniting the controversy that led to the club receiving a ban from European competition that was ultimately overturned at the court of arbitration for sport.

According to documents published by Der Spiegel, City liaised with a government agency in the Gulf State to fulfil payments to the club owed by a private company under the control of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family and City’s owner since 2008.

It comes alongside further claims that the Premier League is investigating the possibility City paid transfer fees for underage players and supplemented the wages of their former manager, Roberto Mancini, by means of a secret consultancy contract.

City would not comment on the allegations but sources close to the club said the new reports were a continuation of an “orchestrated campaign” and part of “an endless attempt to damage us”. Previous allegations made by Der Spiegel which suggested City were the beneficiaries of inflated sponsorship deals directly funded by Sheikh Mansour led to the club receiving a two-year ban from the Champions League. That ban was subsequently cancelled on appeal by Cas.

The new reports are based in part on a further tranche of documents released by the Football Leaks group. They show a number of communications between Simon Pearce, a member of the City board and vice-chairman of sister club Melbourne City FC, and Omar Awad, the finance director of the Executive Affairs Authority, an Abu Dhabi government agency.

In one email from 2013, Pearce is shown to ask Awad to forward a payment of £31.7m to City from a bank account belonging to the Abu