Manchester City Got Caught 114 Kawhis Deep. Now What?

The Etihad Stadium in Manchester, named for one of the Abu Dhabi sponsors at the center of the case. Photo: Arne Müseler / arne-mueseler.com, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 DE)

Remember the Kawhi Leonard thing? A $28 million endorsement deal with a company called Aspiration, a superstar collecting money from a sponsor he never appeared to actually endorse, and a salary cap that suddenly looked optional. Earlier this month, the NBA took five first-round picks from the Clippers, fined them $30 million and suspended owner Steve Ballmer for a year. (Kawhi now plays in Toronto. He would prefer not to discuss it.)

Now picture 115 of those.

That’s more or less where Manchester City landed this week. An independent commission found the club guilty of 114 of the 115 charges the Premier League brought in February 2023. City beat one. It was a charge about failing to cooperate with the investigation, which is a bit like being acquitted on one count of not answering the door.

This is the biggest cheating scandal soccer has seen since Juventus in 2006. So what were they actually doing? I’m a soccer fan, I’ve read a lot about this case, and it still makes my eyes glaze over. Here’s the short version.

The Premier League and UEFA both have rules limiting how much money a club can lose. A rich owner isn’t supposed to back up a truck of cash and buy the league; spending is meant to track what the club actually earns. Think of it as a soft salary cap. Sponsorship money counts as earnings. Owner money, past a certain point, does not.

City’s owner is Sheikh Mansour, a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, and City’s biggest sponsors were Abu Dhabi companies like Etihad Airways and the telecom giant Etisalat. From 2009-10 through 2017-18, City booked £949.94 million (about $1.25 billion) in sponsorship from its Abu Dhabi partners. According to the commission, the partners themselves paid £119.25 million of that. The owner’s investment group covered the rest.

So roughly one of every eight pounds was real sponsorship. The other seven were the owner’s money wearing an airline jersey. The commission’s word for the deals was “shams.”

Then there’s the manager. Roberto Mancini, who won City its first league title in 44 years in 2012, also had a contract as a “consultant” for Al Jazira, a club in Abu Dhabi chaired by the same sheikh. Leaked documents first published by Der Spiegel described a gig that required about four days a year and paid more than his City salary. City got to report a smaller wage bill, and Mancini got paid in full. If that setup sounds familiar, congratulations, you watch the NBA.

Why does any of this matter? Because in this sport, money buys wins, and City gave themselves far more of it than the rules allowed. Fake income raised their spending limit. The higher limit bought Sergio Agüero, David Silva, Yaya Touré and eventually Kevin De Bruyne. Those players won trophies, trophies brought in real Champions League money and real sponsors, and it snowballed. The commission found that without the disguised money, City would have broken the rules in every season it examined. They won three league titles in that stretch, and as of this week, they’re top of the table again.

When the league came asking questions, City fought it for years. The commission found the club failed to cooperate, that several of its witnesses gave false evidence, and that its explanation had been “concocted well after the event.”

So what’s the punishment? Start with some napkin math. In 2023-24, Everton lost six points (cut from ten on appeal) and Nottingham Forest lost four, each for a single breach. At the Forest rate, 114 guilty counts works out to 456 points. A perfect Premier League season is worth 114 points. City would have to win every game for four straight years just to climb back to zero.

(Yes, the number of guilty counts matches the points in a perfect season. I don’t know what that means. I’m choosing to believe it means something.)

It won’t work like that, obviously. Not every charge is equally serious, and the sanctions will be decided in a separate, private hearing. The possibilities run from a fine to a points deduction to getting thrown out of the league. Before the verdict, football finance expert Kieran Maguire guessed somewhere in the range of 60 to 100 points, which would all but guarantee relegation. Another expert, Rob Wilson, figured something closer to 20, a number City could absorb and still make the Champions League.

My prediction, and I hate it: City won’t be relegated.

They’re too big, and the Premier League makes too much money with them in it. I think the league blinks. City lose some points, probably a number that looks tough in a headline and doesn’t cost them much in the table, and they pay a fine. (Which, for once, the owner is allowed to pay himself.)

That’s nowhere near enough for nine years of this, and it sets up the next one. Most clubs couldn’t pull this off if they tried; you need an owner from the family that runs the government that owns the airline. But the handful of owners who could are paying attention. If nine seasons of fake money and five years of stonewalling cost a few points and a check, the lesson they take is to do it more carefully and keep fewer emails. I’m still hoping for the most severe punishment possible. I just don’t expect it.

And before anyone says you can’t relegate a giant, Italy already did. In 2006, Juventus, the biggest club in the country, got caught in Calciopoli, a scandal over rigging referee assignments. They were stripped of two league titles and sent down to Serie B with a points deduction (30 at first, cut to nine on appeal). The stars scattered. Fabio Cannavaro, fresh off captaining Italy to a World Cup, left for Real Madrid. Zlatan Ibrahimović left for Inter.

Juventus lived. Alessandro Del Piero and Gianluigi Buffon stayed, Juve won Serie B, and they were back in Serie A a year later.

That’s the precedent, and it’s the part that should scare City, because this roster is stacked. I have a hard time picturing Erling Haaland playing a rainy Tuesday night in the second division. If the hammer does come down, the Juventus exodus is the template, and every big club in Europe will have its phone out.

Then come the lawyers. Nine seasons is a long time to finish behind a team that was cheating. As the Associated Press laid out, top clubs could argue they lost titles or Champions League places worth tens of millions of dollars a season, and smaller clubs could argue that losing to City’s expensively assembled squads helped push them toward relegation. Manchester United lost the 2011-12 title to City on goal difference. Goal difference! To a team whose manager had a four-days-a-year side gig in Abu Dhabi. If I’m United’s lawyer, I’ve already cleared my calendar.

City say they’re innocent. Chief executive Ferran Soriano called the whole thing a “Premier League conspiracy theory,” and the club has until Friday to appeal. This case has already taken more than three and a half years. It isn’t close to done.

Which brings me back to Kawhi. The NBA looked at the Clippers mess and took five first-round picks, $30 million and a year of Steve Ballmer’s courtside screaming. The Premier League is holding 114 of them. I know what I think they’ll do. I’m rooting to be wrong.