How does Man City's guilty verdict affect the future of New York City FC?

Analysis

Tom Weber | Writer

Major League Soccer franchise New York City FC could be in harm's way if Manchester City receive hefty sanctions for their financial breaches.

Earlier this week, an independent commission appointed on behalf of the Premier League found the Manchester club guilty of almost all of the 115 charges brought against them in 2023.

Man City were deemed to have handed out "sham contracts," misstated accounts, breached financial rules and then failed to adequately cooperate in the Premier League's subsequent investigation. The club deny all allegations and have appealed the verdict.

A newly appointed commission now has 12 weeks to investigate and potentially reinterpret the original panel's ruling if it discovers any irregularities or finds the verdict to be egregiously erroneous. The appeal process is not a relitigation of the entire case.

In the meantime, the original panel will set about deciding the sanctions that will be applied if City's appeal is dismissed. Given the sheer scale of the offences and the unprecedented nature of the case, the Premier League is expected to come down hard on the club and the owners.

What the City case means for NYCFC

Given that no sanctions have been handed down at this stage, any talk about what punishment City may face is purely speculative. In the worst-case scenario, the club could be expelled from the Premier League.

Moreover, the Independent Football Regulator could exercise its statutory power to force City Football Group, which is majority-owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group, to sell the club.

This would then raise existential questions about CFG because City are the multi-club network's flagship team. Would Abu Dhabi have an appetite to continue investing in soccer if it can't use its other clubs to prop up the Manchester giants?

Recent events suggested that Abu Dhabi has no intention of sinking money into a doomed venture. Last December, CFG pulled out of Mumbai City due to the dire straits that Indian football has found itself in. In June, CFG transferred its stake in Yokohama F. Marinos to Nissan.

Abu Dhabi could theoretically pump its money into a different CFG club, but is that worthwhile? The Premier League is the non plus ultra in soccer, so making a team in a lesser league the group's crown jewel might not be worth the resources.

If, hypothetically, CFG were to collapse, this would have gigantic ramifications for the clubs within the network. MLS franchise New York City FC would have to be transferred to new owners.

In theory, this shouldn't prove too difficult. A major league franchise in the heart of New York City, set to play in a new state-of-the-art, downtown stadium, will be incredibly appealing to prospective buyers.

Indeed, NYCFC seem to be well protected against any kind of ownership upheaval. Yankee Global Enterprises and Marcelo Claure each own 10% of the club already and could look to buy out CFG or bring different investors on board.

Should, for whatever reason, a cataclysmic scenario emerge wherein the entire NYCFC ownership group were to be ousted, that still wouldn't be the end of the club.

Because of the single-entity structure of MLS, the league would acquire control of the team and then sell it to new ownership, as it did with Chivas USA in 2014, which was later replaced by LAFC.

Losing CFG would nevertheless have significant consequences. For one, NYCFC would lose access to the group's global talent recruitment and development infrastructure.

Current NYCFC players Aiden O'Neill and Kai Trewin previously played for Melbourne City, while Alonso Martinez joined from CFG-owned Lommel in Belgium in 2023.

Beyond that, the Man City ruling might also force the club into personnel changes. All the bigwigs currently under threat of severe sanctions are also connected to NYCFC via CFG, albeit loosely.

More pertinent will be the future of NYCFC's Chief Financial Officer Andrew Widdowson, who was Man City's Finance Director during the period of the club's breaches. He was well aware of what was going.

In one of the confidential emails disclosed by Football Leaks and published by Der Spiegel in 2018, Widdowson wrote "we are breaching anyway" when discussing the club's failure to comply with Financial Fair Play rules in 2013. He added that "[we are] just relying on mitigating factors to get us through."

There could also be a positive impact for NYCFC. Despite having probably the richest owners in MLS, the club haven't had a global superstar on their roster since David Villa left under a cloud of sexual harassment allegations in 2020.

For a club with the resources of NYCFC, one MLS Cup in 11 seasons is also not particularly impressive, and it doesn't look like a second silver star will be added to the club's crest this year. NYCFC have been disappointing in 2026 and could easily still drop out of the playoff spots.

New ownership could mean a more ambitious approach to the transfer market. Christian Pulisic, who is already a target for the club right now, may be more inclined to move to MLS if given the opportunity to play alongside genuine superstars.

As things stand, he doesn't seem particularly interested. On Thursday, he announced his intentions to stay at AC Milan, who are planning to hold contract talks with him.

"I'm very happy at Milan," Pulisic said. "The club is giving me everything. It's helped me a lot. Now I'm focused on playing. We'll talk about it [the contract], hopefully soon. I feel really good, and I hope to stay at Milan."

Of course, there are mitigating factors. CFG may argue that they haven't invested Inter Miami, LAFC, Atlanta or Toronto-level money in the team because of the stadium construction. Attracting big names is probably also not easy when you play on a horrible pitch in a baseball stadium.

However, the fact that NYCFC haven't really been in the Supporters' Shield conversation at all yet this decade is damning. Their MLS Cup win in 2021 came off the back of a fourth-place finish in the Eastern Conference and eighth overall.

In fact, even when they ended up top of the East in 2019, they finished eight points behind Shield winners LAFC. Rarely have they been a genuinely elite team in their conference, let alone the entire league, in recent years.

Yet, just by virtue of location and catchment area, the Pigeons are among the MLS franchises with the highest potential. NYCFC could easily be an Inter Miami or LAFC-level brand.

From that point of view, perhaps they actually need new ownership to reinvigorate the club. Maybe being forced to leave CFG would be a blessing in disguise.

Written by

Tom Weber | Writer

Tom Weber is an experienced, multilingual sports writer who specialises in European football and American soccer as part of his freelance work for FootballTransfers.

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