Manchester City guilty of almost all 115 financial charges, Premier League says in explosive verdict

Manchester City has been found guilty of almost all of the unprecedented 115 charges of financial wrongdoing it faced, the Premier League confirmed on Tuesday, in one of the biggest scandals in English soccer history.

City, the most successful team in England for the past 15 years and the current Premier League leader, now faces severe sanctions that could include a huge points deduction or even expulsion from the world's most popular soccer league, causing huge reputational damage to its Abu Dhabi ownership.

The explosive verdict by an independent commission — which was reported by a number of British media outlets on Friday — "details how the club systematically broke Premier League rules for nearly a decade," Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said in a case that was initiated by the competition more than three years ago and first arose in 2018 from leaked club emails and documents.

City said it was "disappointed and surprised" by the commission's verdict, that it was "innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League" and will be "relentless" as it pursues avenues to appeal.

City was accused of a raft of financial violations from 2009-18 — a period when the northwest club, long in the shadow of great rival Manchester United, was transforming itself into a record-breaking global superpower that has won multiple Premier League titles and the Champions League.

The violations included failing to provide accurate financial information and submitting inflated figures for sponsorship deals out of Abu Dhabi, hiding payments that supplemented salaries of managers and players, and breaching financial rules established by the Premier League and UEFA, European soccer's governing body, aiming to keep clubs