🧵 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?

Wider and wider…

You already know that Manchester United are far away, but then you get a reminder like PSG vs Barcelona of how truly far away they are. Not even in the same galaxy.

City fans barely anywhere to be seen. Keep in mind this is during the game, not beforehand. Record revenues & sellout crowds they'll tell you though. At least this is a preview of what life will be like in non-league when everything is said & done. Sham.

The integrity of the season is already gone - thanks to Manchester City. Over a decade of English football has been a farce - thanks to Manchester City. The punishment should be far harsher than guaranteed relegation. piped.video/watch?is=S3V-eeS…

ball boy retrieving the balls from dalot crosses.

City fans being brainwashed cucks or are too stupid to understand the difference between everyone not caring about their 'achievements' & having no respect for them, but caring about how they happened. People despise that they are cheats & will just forget them once they're gone.

Carrick and Wilcox 100% met yesterday and spoke. They meet on most days and speak to each other constantly, it doesn't have to be a top secret scheduled meeting. The article above also says that the players were off after the game, this isn't true. They've reported in both days.

PL haven’t leaked a single fact about the case. Even telling the clubs was allowed by the rules. All this leaking by City, in which they spread clear misinformation too, will be added to the next tranche of charges and likely be a further aggravating factor for their sanctions.

I personally would welcome more damning interviews like Lisandro Martinez or Erik ten Hag. Anything that puts more spotlight on those at Manchester United who are to blame for the ongoing state of the club & it's failures is a good, necessary thing.

Another indictment of the Glazers & INEOS, a reminder of things which we already knew, but reinforcing that while Manchester United is run the way it is, by who runs it, this is a cycle the club will keep on reliving. It doesn't alleviate ten Hag's own failings, the mistakes he made, SEG's interference & their involvement in transfers which has set the club back years, but ultimately he was set up for failure without support. Never forget who the ultimate enemies will always be.

Oh my god this is absolutely awful from Ronaldo 😳😳😳

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So on the 26th October I am going to do 25 laps of Old Trafford to make funds for my team at Salford Royal. I want to get to £1000 if I can. Please donate. This is a work link as they will match my efforts. benevity.go.link/9PwQw

Another reason why the punishment against City will not be as lenient as they will try to brief through their media lackeys. They have consistently tried to deny, deflect & delay justice through any means necessary. It will come back to bite them when sanctions are handed down.

The people that run Manchester United are cowards & cretins, it is incredibly depressing knowing the club's future is tied to them. Fully back him or sack him, but decision makers like Jason Wilcox & Omar Berrada know their own future is tied to Michael Carrick's.

Bruno Fernandes is a scapegoat for some Manchester United fans. How quickly people forget & turn on a player who is the reigning Footballer of the Year, Player of the Year & Players Player of the Year. Wait & see how bad it gets without him. If he's had enough, I don't blame him.

I don’t give a fuck about Italy or Milan. Was Amorim’s United unbeaten in England when he got sacked?

Maybe it's compounded being here again in the cycle Manchester United are stuck in since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, but I am so disengaged from football. I cannot escape the feeling since City were found guilty. The integrity & authenticity of the game is on life support, if it at all. We are witnesses to a farce, a sham. Perhaps it changes when the appeal inevitably fails, they are sanctioned & gone. That said, it doesn't change a thing with United. They are who they are too. How depressing it is to watch the sport you love be torn apart & destroyed by the rich & evil, who to football is simply another tool for more wealth & power.