Rizky Amelia
Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak has told supporters the club remains "just as" confident of proving its innocence as it was at the start of a lengthy Premier League disciplinary case, following media reports that the independent panel had found the club guilty of 114 breaches of the English game's financial rules.
Writing in an open letter published on Saturday, Al Mubarak said the process that has hung over the club for years "still has a long way to run" and that neither he nor the club's supporters should treat the reported verdict as the final word. "Our confidence and intent in proving the club's innocence is just as strong as when this began," he wrote.
The letter came a day after reports circulated that City had been found guilty of 114 breaches of Premier League accounting and financial rules. The Premier League itself has refused to confirm, deny or elaborate on the reported outcome, saying only: "It's a confidential process, we're not commenting at all."
The club, which has always denied any wrongdoing, is expected to appeal the decision of the independent panel. Such an appeal would open a new chapter in a dispute that has become one of the most closely watched regulatory cases in English football, and one that has repeatedly outlasted predictions of a swift resolution.
Al Mubarak framed the letter as a personal message as much as a club statement. He said that following Friday's media reporting, he — like many supporters — spent the evening fielding questions from friends, family and colleagues. "Here is what I said to my family: The Premier League process still has a long way to run," he wrote, adding that neither the club's determination nor the strength of its belief in its own position had diminished.
City's position has been consistent for much of the case. In a statement issued in February 2023, when the Premier League referred alleged breaches to an independent commission, the club said it was "surprised" by the allegations, "particularly given the extensive engagement and vast amount of detailed materials that the EPL has provided with". The club said it "welcomes the review of this matter by an independent commission, to impartially consider the comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of its position."
The club repeated that statement on Friday, and Al Mubarak reproduced it inside his open letter, urging supporters to read both documents carefully because "every word matters and holds true". Reiterating the February 2023 language suggests the club is sticking to a defence built around the adequacy of the evidence it submitted rather than on any new line of argument.
The confidentiality of the proceedings is itself a defining feature of the case. Al Mubarak said he was severely limited in what he could say, and stressed that even the open letter had to pass through several legal checks to ensure it complied with the rules governing the process. That restriction helps explain why the club's public messaging has remained largely unchanged across more than three and a half years.
Why the case matters extends well beyond the two clubs involved. As Al Jazeera noted in coverage accompanying the report, a guilty verdict would rank among the most significant rulings in the sport's history. The reasons are structural as much as competitive: the allegations concerned how one of the Premier League's most successful and richest clubs valued sponsorship and commercial deals, and how it reported revenue to the league.
Those questions cut at the foundations of English football's financial regulation. Premier League rules require clubs to demonstrate financial sustainability and, since the introduction of squad cost ratio rules, to operate within limits set by a regulator that lacks the enforcement powers of a statutory body. City has long argued that its commercial arrangements were struck at arm's length, and the club's defence is likely to have leaned heavily on the volume of documentation it supplied to the Premier League during the review process.
For supporters, the stakes are emotional as much as regulatory. Al Mubarak appealed directly to the club's fan base for patience, pointing to the volume of speculation that has followed the reported ruling. "While some people have been quick to reach their own conclusions and there is so much noise swirling around us, nothing has changed," he said. "We have faced challenges together before and have prevailed."
He also warned against assuming that outside parties had succeeded in derailing the club: "There remain many who want to undermine the momentum of our club. We will not give them that opportunity." The language echoes the club's long-running insistence that it has been targeted by competing interests, a theme that has drawn criticism from rival supporters and, at times, from the league itself.
What happens next is unclear, and Al Mubarak would not be drawn out. Because the Premier League is not commenting and the panel's reasoning remains confidential, the reported finding has not been formally confirmed by the authority that brought the charges. City can be expected to file an appeal once the full decision is made available to it, and any appeal would likely require the club to demonstrate procedural error, or that the panel misread the evidence.
The timeline has already stretched far beyond the moment in February 2023 when the club first described the allegations as surprising. In the intervening years, the case became a fixture of Premier League discussion, with periodic hearings and procedural rulings reported in the British and international media.
For now, the club's public line is unchanged from the start: confident, defiant, and legally constrained. Al Mubarak's letter made no new claims and offered no detail on the reported 114 breaches. Its purpose was reassurance — to supporters, to the media, and to a wider football public that has waited years for a verdict that, if confirmed, could reshape how financial rules are policed at the top of English football.
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