🧵 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?

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Extraordinary opening address from Michael Carrick at his press conference, he looks like a broken man. What a difference it would make if others at Manchester United care the way that he clearly does. Those who hired him are cowards, have hung him out to dry & stay in hiding.

Whether they sack or back Michael Carrick, it is time for Jason Wilcox (if he isn't sacked too) and/or Omar Berrada to face the media & answer questions about what has been happening at Manchester United. If they back him, why? If they sack him, why? Why only three midfielders? Why was Lisandro Martinez fined? Why wasn't Bruno Fernandes? What is their vision for the club, the first team, the Academy? INEOS said they would be more transparent in their communication - they haven't. Stop letting Carrick respond for issues that he isn't making decisions on.

Talking solely about Michael Carrick misses the point. Jason Wilcox should be sacked regardless of Carrick & shouldn't be appointing his replacement. Unai Emery would want control ‘at odds with the structure put in place’? Good. How's that structure going? Having one doesn't mean it works. Carrick's future should trigger discussions about how it all got here & who is at fault for that - but I would not expect that to happen at this club. And this lot might want Eddie Howe. Lord have mercy.

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This is what Manchester United fans have been saying for 21 years, their entire ownership this is what the protests have been about. With the enhanced powers of the @TheIFROfficial, how can they still be deemed fit to be owners? They have destroyed the club & fed on its soul.

Desperate Manchester United 'fans' pining for their ex in Ruben Amorim - getting rinsed by Premier League opposition in Bournemouth, romanticising a past relationship pretending it's something it wasn't while he delivered some of the worst football ever witnessed at Old Trafford.

Dressing room fights, media briefs about Michael Carrick's replacement, meanwhile he's a lame duck until the inevitable sack. Amazon are going to give Manchester United a blank cheque for a second season of All or Nothing. It will be the biggest documentary since The Last Dance.

This is a good summation of Manchester United's lack of alignment internally. Besides the fact Jason Wilcox should have no input on the new appointment & should be the first person sacked, everyone at the club is pulling in a different direction. It's exactly the reason things are the way they are. There should be a Director of Football setting a vision & direction for the club, instead there's self interested idiots who aren't accountable for their own failures clamouring to stay in the sun. Dan Ashworth must be laughing his ass off watching this all unfold.