Adam

Manchester United | PL & European Football | YT/TT/IG: @adamjosephfootball | @nqatpod & @tplmufc 🎙️ | 📧 [email protected] | sponsored by @rainbetcom

[Adam @AdamJoseph]

🧵 THREAD: Manchester City, the charges, the evidence, & how justice was delayed.

Manchester City weren’t charged because rivals complained or because they 'spent big'. They were charged because evidence shows a decade-long system designed to hide owner funding, inflate revenue & deceive & obstruct investigations.

The Premier League’s case didn’t appear overnight.
It began in late 2018, triggered by Football Leaks documents - internal emails, invoices, contracts - that contradicted what City had been telling UEFA & the Premier League for years.

Those emails are the backbone of everything that followed. At the centre of the case is a simple allegation: Manchester City repeatedly disguised owner funding as commercial revenue.

FFP rules require sponsorship income to be real, independent, and market value. What the emails suggest is that City’s biggest 'sponsors' weren’t paying what City claimed - Abu Dhabi was.

Take Etihad as an example. Leaked emails show City executives discussing Etihad paying only a fraction of headline sponsorship deals, with the shortfall quietly topped up by Abu Dhabi government-linked entities.

One email explicitly references ensuring funds 'come through the correct channels' so they are not detected as separate sources of funding. That is the definition of disguised equity. This wasn’t a one-off.

Emails show Etihad deals where shirt sponsorship, stadium, training kit & campus naming rights were all inflated wildly out of line with the market at the time - later confirmed in the actual contracts, not just drafts.

The numbers in the leaks weren’t hypothetical. They were real. UEFA auditors suspected this as early as 2013–14.

They found £47m of 'intellectual property' sales boosting income, a £5m 'win bonus' paid for an FA Cup final City lost & sponsorships from Aabar and Etisalat above market value.

City were fined & restricted - but crucially, UEFA never saw the full records. Why? Because City refused to provide them. This becomes a pattern.

When UEFA charged City again in 2020, they imposed a two-year Champions League ban. City appealed to CAS & had it overturned. City fans shout 'INNOCENT', shared out of context screenshots. They're wrong.

CAS did not rule that City were innocent. CAS ruled that UEFA could not meet the burden of proof - largely because City did not co-operate. City were fined €10m specifically for obstructing the investigation.

Even City's own expert witness was denied access to key information that could have disproved disguised funding. 'No evidence' doesn’t mean nothing happened. It means the evidence was withheld.

CAS explicitly stated that disguised equity funding could not be excluded - only that neither side could conclusively prove their case. That vagueness was entirely engineered.

After CAS, new emails emerged suggesting Simon Pearce, a senior City executive & Sheikh Mansour adviser, had given misleading testimony under oath. City declined to comment. Again.

While all this was happening, the Premier League had already been investigating City for years. City’s response? Delay. Delay. Delay. Obstruct. Litigate.

Court filings later revealed City challenged the legality of the investigation itself, filed repeated procedural applications, refused to hand over documents, forced arbitration, then challenged arbitration & tried to keep the entire process secret.

A High Court judge called it out in 2021. “It is surprising, and a matter of legitimate public concern, that so little progress has been made.” That’s legal spiel for stonewalling.

This obstruction accounts for 35 of the 115 charges alone & that’s before we get to the secret payments.

City declared Roberto Mancini's salary as £1.45m per year. On the same day he signed with City, he also signed a “consultancy” deal with Al Jazira - a club owned by the same man who owns City - worth £1.75m per year. That deal was explicitly marked confidential.

Emails show City executives arranging the payments. Same signatures. Same people. Same day. The allegation is obvious: City paid Mancini off the books.

Leaked documents allege undeclared payments for Yaya Touré, including via third parties. These aren’t rumours. They’re contracts, emails, invoices. This is why there are 14 charges relating to manager and player remuneration.

Then there’s image rights. City told UEFA they sold player image rights for a £24.5m lump sum to comply with FFP. Later, they quietly resumed earning millions from image rights again.

The buyer? A company whose directors included City’s own senior legal officer. Independent journalists couldn’t even establish its genuine commercial purpose.

All of this feeds into the core allegation across 54 charges: City failed to provide accurate financial information in good faith. Not once. Not twice. But repeatedly, over nearly a decade.

Now add politics. UK government departments discussed City’s charges with the British embassy in Abu Dhabi. Those communications are sealed - because releasing them could 'damage relations with the UAE'. City insist they are not state-backed. Then why is the state involved?

Yet still, the delays continue. A 12-week closed-door hearing. Half a million documents. Years of silence. City remain 'innocent' - not because the evidence disappeared, but because the verdict hasn’t landed.

This is why the case matters. If City walk away with a fine, it tells every club to cheat cleverly, obstruct endlessly, spend on lawyers, not compliance.. & the rules collapse.

This isn’t about jealousy. It isn’t about success. It’s about whether financial regulation in English football is real - or optional for the richest club in the league.

The evidence exists. The emails exist. The delays are documented. Now only one question remains, do the rules apply to City or not?

[No Question About That @nqatpod]

We still haven't had a verdict in the 115 charges against City for (alleged) financial malfeasance. City are spending more money this winter, chasing another title. Ed and Adam pick up the story. @AdamJoseph

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[Adam @AdamJoseph]

The current top two in the La Liga table go head to head, always unpredictable always chaotic, what next?

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[Adam @AdamJoseph]

If City win, it's a reminder how farcical it is they're even allowed to be playing, how hollow & meaningless it is.

If City lose, it's something we all get to enjoy & a tiny dose of what they deserve while we await sanctioning.

They're a joke, a sham. And that can never change.

[Adam @AdamJoseph]

@sullyexcl Should never ever want your club to lose, no matter the reason. That should always come first.

[Adam @AdamJoseph]

Everything around Manchester United is depressing. The club is in a state of flux, stuck in neutral too afraid to make a decision & back or sack Michael Carrick.

Meanwhile the fanbase is attacking each other, telling one another how best to support the club - instead of focusing their anger where it belongs.

It all feels a bit defeatist. People at the club hide away, refusing to give clarity on what's happening & in the meantime everyone is at each other's throats.

And at the end of it all, the Glazers couldn't care less.

[Adam @AdamJoseph]

@FrankEra_ How high might he end up on the list of regrets from this past summer?

[Adam @AdamJoseph]

@tomiwebstr Lowden or O'Connor, imo.

[Steve @Shabby_The_Red]

If you are getting behind either of these protests tomorrow then you have my respect and support.

Please get involved, doing something is better than doing nothing in my opinion

[Charlie Stebbings @CharlieStebbs]

Manchester United…
- still a billion in debt
- a billion in interest paid on that debt
- £1.7bn spent in 10 years for 1 top signing
- £2bn stadium build (min) required

That’s a lot of billions…all in the wrong place. So how did it get this bad? And what needs to happen to sort it out?

We welcomed the oracle on this matter @thePoS_007 into the studio to get to the bottom of this chaos 👹

@bizzofsport
Full show👇

[Adam @AdamJoseph]

The cheats are starting to stumble, are they feeling the pressure knowing that heavy sanctions are about to be announced?

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[Adam @AdamJoseph]

Antonelli already has the world title world title but now he's chasing the most wins in a maiden championship season.

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[Adam @AdamJoseph]

If Luke Shaw, Harry Maguire, Mason Mount, Noussair Mazraoui, Lisandro Martinez, Manuel Ugarte, Joshua Zirkzee & Andre Onana were to leave Manchester United, that's £1.2m per week & £60m+ per year off the wage bill.

Start in January, finish next summer. Every penny counts.

[mufcmpb @mufcMPB]

🚨 BREAKING:

Luke Shaw is expected to LEAVE Manchester United in the summer. United have already started thinking about the possibility of parting ways with him at the end of the season. #MUFC [@FabrizioRomano]

[Adam @AdamJoseph]

@thePoS_007 Very nice to see mate, well deserved!

[Sub-Prime Goals @thePoS_007]

What in store for United's financial future?

#MUFC's annual interest costs on the LBO debt this year will be the equivalent of 3 players on £275k a week. The spine of a squad.

On the 40th anniversary of Sir Alex Ferguson's first day, we go back to the beginning of United's financial juggernaut success and track what actually happened to United's finances since then and what the future could hold.

Was a pleasure speaking with the two Charlie's this week on @bizzofsport @CharlieStebbs

https://t.co/YITbLHxlnA

[Magic hat 🎩 @themagic_tophat]

I find it bizarre that so many people believe Man City will be getting a simple relegation.

Step back from the Commission’s decision and look at the holistic implication of what it says…

That, over the course of 8 years, Manchester City’s executives and board directors undertook multiple endeavours of systematic cheating on a massive scale, requiring criminal acts involving: false accounting, fraud, and conspiracy to defraud.

The impact was vast and undoubtedly fully corrupted the integrity of the Premier League for over a decade, irreparably damaging the league, its brand, its participants, its partners, and its fans.

Once discovered, they stone-walled, obfuscated and misled regulators, even committing further criminal acts to avoid justice, including: perjury, forgery, and perverting the course of justice.

To action these criminal feats, they needed to have leveraged state powers of the UAE, to which they clearly have full access and control.

And even now, when they have been found guilty, they continue to deny and delay, undertaking as much lawfare as is open to them.

The Commission has a duty to issue sanctions that will protect the ongoing integrity of the league. This is made explicit in precedent.

Relegation, very clearly, does not achieve that objective.

It has always been obvious that the club must be expelled if it is not sold to new, independent owners.

There is no alternative sanction that can protect the league from such malign and powerful actors.

Given the Commission lacks the power to enforce such a sanction, I suspect they refer the matter to the IFR and apply significant sanctions that will keep Man City out of the league long enough for the IFR to act.

Given the Premier League is yet to charge Man City for seasons 2018/19 - 2025/26, that also offers further leverage to ensure the objective is met.

[Adam @AdamJoseph]

@lawrence_bury Yes instead, let it be because of cheating state owned sportswashing projects!

[Adam @AdamJoseph]

@PapaSayds AI bubble bursting post-midterms. Big investors pulling their capital.

[Adam @AdamJoseph]

Sir Alex Ferguson arrived at Manchester United to a 26 year title drought. The 26 year odyssey that followed was unlike anything we'll see again in this lifetime.

13 Premier League titles, 5 FA Cups, 4 League Cups, 2 Champions League titles, 38 major trophies - not including what he achieved at St Mirren & Aberdeen.

Two three-peats, 22 consecutive seasons inside the top three, he broke the Old Firm's Scottish dominance, he beat Real Madrid with Aberdeen. A born winner.

Built one title winning side after another, rebuilding them on the fly, seeing off every rival & contender in the process. Their hatred & bitterness lasts to this day.

A man who both defined & transcended eras - his greatness, his longevity & the period of dominance he fostered will never be seen again.

[Manchester United @ManUtd]

Celebrating an icon 🐐🇾🇪

[Adam @AdamJoseph]

@ManUtd The GOAT ❤️🐐

And it isn't close either.

[Adam @AdamJoseph]

Everton gunning for three wins in a row & Coventry's strong form makes for fun Friday Night Football at the Hill Dickinson.

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[Adam @AdamJoseph]

Can I play on the same table as the Glazers with the money they've stolen from Manchester United?

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