Timeline for Man City's guilty verdict punishment revealed

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FT Desk

The head of the Independent Football Regulator has confirmed when he expects Manchester City to receive punishment after they were found guilty of 114 financial breaches by the Premier League.

The charges include allegedly providing inaccurate financial information relating to "sham" sponsorships, failing to disclose the full details of manager and player payments, breaching financial fair-play rules, and failing to cooperate fully with the Premier League’s investigation.

City have consistently denied wrongdoing and argued that they have evidence supporting their position, while they have appealed the guilty verdict.

Punishments could include a major points deduction, a transfer ban and a significant fine. We should find out the outcome in early 2027.

David Kogan told Times Radio: “The Premier League have said that they want to get this resolved within season and actually, of course, it’s not the Premier League, it’s an independent commission that’s going to hear this, made of three retired either judges or lawyers.

“My understanding is there is a prescribed process, which is 12 weeks, and so people are assuming this will actually be heard by the middle or the end of January. But as I say, it’s not our process, it’s that of the Premier League’s independent commission. What I don’t think we can do is take any judgment until we’re quite clear.

“Obviously, City claim that they have some form of silver bullet to put off these charges and win the appeal, and we’re not there to judge whether that’s right or wrong yet, but I think we’ll know in the early part of next year.”

Kogan previously insisted he would quit as head of the Independent Football Regulator if there was any political interference in the City case, following Prime Minister Andy Burnham's comment that he would be "concerned" if the club's Abu Dhabi ownership pulled funding out of the country.

“Let me be really, really clear about this. Our independence is absolute, and my independence, personally, is absolute,” he said. “Any form of political interference on the way we operate is going to result in my resigning from this role. And I stand by that completely.

“I should say, just to be crystal clear, we’ve come under absolutely no political pressure whatsoever on this [Manchester City] or any other topic. And I don’t expect to in the future. I think ministers, and indeed opposition parties, with whom we are in fairly close contact, know full well that we are going to act entirely independently. And that’s exactly what we are going to do.”

There has been no such interference with the regulator previously.

“The prime minister’s capable of saying whatever he wants to say. You asked me whether we have had any interference politically in any of the judgments we’re making, and I’m telling you, categorically, we have not," he confirmed.

“We will take a judgment based on evidence, once the appeal has been heard by the independent commission of the Premier League, we’re going to look at that evidence closely, we’re going to actually have powers of investigation ourselves, and that will be what governs what we do.”