For years, the 115 charges were English football's longest-running weather system. Every City title parade happened beneath them. Every transfer window had a footnote. Every debate about Pep Guardiola's dynasty eventually arrived at the same locked door: wait for the verdict.
That door has finally moved.
David Ornstein has reported for The Athletic that Manchester City have been found guilty on all but one of the 115 Premier League charges relating to financial regulations. The report, based on sources briefed on the outcome who were not authorised to speak publicly, also says sanctions have not been decided, and City are expected to appeal.
That final sentence matters. A lot.
This is not yet a points deduction. It is not title stripping. It is not relegation. Those outcomes may be debated, demanded and deployed as social-media ammunition before tea. None has been announced. The independent commission’s written award has not yet been publicly published, so the precise findings and the route to sanction are not available for readers to inspect.
The Touchline Dribble Take
- Ornstein’s report changes the argument: the question is no longer whether City might be found guilty, but what a finding on virtually every charge will cost.
- A punishment is not a ceremonial appendix. It is the part that tells the rest of the league whether its financial rules have teeth.
- City’s expected appeal means the legal process is still alive, but the aura of permanent procedural fog has been punctured.
How the 115 charges became football’s biggest case
The story did not begin with a tribunal door opening in London. It began with the financial rise of a club that had moved from Premier League outsider to the centre of English football. The alleged conduct named in the referral runs mainly from 2009/10 to 2017/18, the years in which City's modern project became a sporting empire.
The public spark, autumn 2018
The immediate public spark came when Der Spiegel published allegations drawn from the Football Leaks material. Contemporaneous reporting says the Premier League investigation began in 2018. That is where a broad public argument about sponsorship, revenue and football finance became a regulatory investigation with its own evidence and procedures.
The referral, February 2023
On 6 February 2023, the Premier League formally referred the alleged breaches to an independent commission. It did not issue a verdict. It set out the alleged rule failures and moved the case from investigation to adjudication.
City answered that day by saying it was surprised by the allegations and welcomed an independent review. Its position was that it had a comprehensive body of evidence supporting it. That defence is part of the story, not a footnote to it.
The private hearing, September to December 2024
The independent commission heard the case in private. Reporting at the time placed the hearing at London's International Dispute Resolution Centre, starting on 16 September 2024. It ultimately ran for 12 weeks and concluded on 6 December, according to The Independent's timeline.
That privacy is why the public has never had a running transcript, witness list or daily readout. The Premier League's own rules state that commission proceedings are confidential and heard in private. The absence of courtroom theatre was built into the process.
The long wait, then Ornstein’s report
The long gap after the hearing turned the case into a running joke, then a governance problem. Each new season began before the previous one had received a public answer. On 25 September 2026, David Ornstein reported that City had been found guilty on all but one charge, with sanctions undecided and an appeal expected.
That is why this moment feels different. The original question was whether the commission would ever resolve a charge sheet stretching across several eras of the club. The next question is harder: what does resolution mean in practice?
What has actually been reported?
The cleanest version is also the most important one. Ornstein reports a finding of guilt on all but one charge, with sanctions unresolved and an appeal expected. Treat that as the present state of the story, not as a licence to fill in the blank spaces with fantasy league tables.
The Premier League’s February 2023 referral grouped the allegations into five broad areas. They included claims that City did not provide accurate financial information over multiple seasons, did not fully disclose manager and player remuneration, breached rules requiring compliance with UEFA regulations, breached profitability and sustainability rules, and failed to cooperate with the league’s investigation.
That scope is why this case has always felt different. It was never simply a row over an over-ambitious transfer fee or a late filing. The league referred the matter to an independent commission and stated that the proceedings would be private, with the final award to be published. The finding reported by Ornstein therefore lands as a judgement on the information system around a club, not merely one balance-sheet line.
City's position at the start was emphatic. In its 2023 response, the club said it was surprised by the allegations and welcomed an independent review of what it called an irrefutable body of evidence supporting its case. That context should not disappear just because the headline is explosive: City are expected to appeal, and the published reasons will matter.
The charges that carry the heaviest implications
The number 115 has always made the case sound like a pile of paperwork. The Premier League referral says otherwise. Its most consequential allegations are about whether the league received a reliable account of how one of its most successful clubs was financed, paid and regulated.
Accurate financial information, 2009/10 to 2017/18
The league alleged that City failed to provide financial information giving a true and fair view, including revenue, related parties and operating costs. This goes to the integrity of the information used to police the competition.
Manager and player remuneration disclosure, 2009/10 to 2015/16
The referral alleged that full details of manager and player pay were not included in relevant contracts. The point is not gossip about wages. It is whether the league had the information required to enforce its rules.
UEFA compliance and PSR, specified seasons from 2013/14 to 2017/18
The referral also alleged non-compliance with UEFA club-licensing and financial-fair-play rules, and with Premier League profitability and sustainability rules. These claims widen the case beyond one reporting exercise. The PSR allegations are the category closest to recent cases involving Everton and Nottingham Forest.
Cooperation with the investigation, from December 2018
The Premier League alleged failures to assist its investigation by providing documents and information in good faith. This is the charge family that turns a historic accounting dispute into a test of whether the regulator can investigate at all.
The first and last rows are the pressure points. If the information provided to the league was unreliable, the rulebook had no dependable starting point. If an investigation cannot obtain what it needs, even a good rulebook becomes theatre.
That does not tell us the commission's reasoning in any individual charge. Only its written award can do that. It does explain why a reported finding across virtually the whole case would carry implications far beyond a disagreement over a permitted loss figure.
Why the sanction is now the whole story
Football fans will spend the next few days playing punishment roulette: 10 points, 60 points, trophies removed, expulsion, a fine with the emotional weight of a parking ticket. It makes for loud content. It tells us almost nothing.
The commission has to turn a reported finding across virtually the entire case into a remedy that is proportionate, coherent and defensible. That is where the league’s credibility is exposed.
A light sanction would invite the obvious conclusion: that a club can gain the sporting advantage first, absorb the legal process later, and treat regulation as a cost of doing business. A severe sanction would trigger a fight over precedent, retrospective consequences and the fairness of punishing players, staff and supporters who did not author the conduct. Neither path is clean. That is why the sanction cannot be guessed from a Reddit thread or a rival fan’s group chat.
The practical question is simpler: will the punishment meaningfully recognise the scale of the reported findings? If the answer is no, every future Premier League financial rule will arrive with an asterisk attached.
The possible outcomes, from routine to nuclear
The Premier League says a serious rule breach can bring penalties ranging from fines to points deductions and, in extreme cases, expulsion. Its published disciplinary rule also allows a commission to suspend a club from league matches and to recommend expulsion from membership. The league says expulsion has never happened in Premier League history. That makes it legally available, not likely.
A reprimand or fine
This is the least disruptive route. It would leave the league table and City’s ability to play untouched. In a case reported to involve findings across virtually all charges, it would also invite the fiercest argument about deterrence. That is analysis, not a reported indication of what the commission will do.
A points deduction
This is the sporting sanction fans understand best because Everton and Nottingham Forest have recently lived through it. A deduction could reshape City’s current season, European qualification or relegation risk, depending on its scale and timing. No deduction has been announced. No responsible analysis can supply a number before the commission does.
Suspension from league matches
The disciplinary rules permit a commission to suspend a club from playing league matches. That sits above a fine or points deduction in severity. It is a possibility in the rulebook, not evidence that City will be suspended.
Expulsion from Premier League membership
The rules permit a commission to recommend that the league expel a club from membership. It is the outcome supporters reach for when the word "115" appears, and the one most likely to produce fantasy rather than analysis. The Premier League says no club has ever been expelled from the competition. Nothing in Ornstein’s report says that expulsion has been selected.
An appeal that changes the picture
City are expected to appeal, according to Ornstein’s report. The Premier League explains that an Appeal Board can allow or dismiss an appeal, or vary the commission’s order. Even after sanctions are announced, the final sporting effect may not be immediate or fixed.
Other orders in the rulebook
Rule W.51 also lists compensation, a recommendation to replay a match, and cancelling or refusing a player registration made in breach of the rules. It permits combinations of penalties. None of those outcomes has been reported in this case. They belong in the legal range, not in a prediction.
Title stripping is often discussed alongside these options. It is not an announced sanction in this case, and should not be written as one. The published award, its reasons and the wording of any sanction have to arrive before anyone can claim that historic medals or league tables will change.
What English football has punished before
There is precedent for points deductions. There is no neat precedent that can price this case. That distinction matters before anyone starts doing arithmetic on a rival fan's phone.
Everton: eight points across two PSR cases
Everton admitted PSR breaches in two separate proceedings. A 10-point deduction for the first breach was reduced to six on appeal; a separate two-point deduction was later confirmed. It proves that a Premier League commission will use sporting sanctions for financial-rule breaches. It does not set a tariff for a case built around different allegations and a longer period.
Nottingham Forest: four points for PSR
Forest received a four-point deduction for a PSR breach in 2023/24. It is another recent example of an in-season sporting penalty. It is not a comparison in scale or fact pattern.
Portsmouth: nine points for administration
Portsmouth lost nine points after entering administration in 2009/10. It shows that deductions have long been used in the English top flight, including for insolvency. Administration is a different regulatory event, not a guide to a verdict on financial reporting.
The Premier League's final statement on Everton's second case records the settled outcome as six points and then a further two for separate PSR breaches. The league's 2023/24 review also records Nottingham Forest's four-point deduction. Portsmouth's season record records the nine points deducted after administration.
Those cases establish the tool, not the answer. Everton and Forest concerned PSR calculations under an expedited process. Portsmouth involved insolvency. The reported City outcome concerns several allegation families across different years, with sanction still undecided and an expected appeal. A comparison can illuminate the range of English football's responses. It cannot settle what this commission should do.
This is bigger than Manchester City’s trophy cabinet
The temptation is to make the entire story about who should inherit which medal. That is the small version of a much larger problem.
The real issue is competitive consent. Clubs accept a shared competition because they believe the rules apply to everyone, even when the rules are imperfect and the enforcement is slow. Once that belief goes, the table becomes less a sporting record than a negotiation between wealth, lawyers and patience.
The reported ruling would not erase City’s football. It would not make Sergio Agüero’s goal less dramatic, nor would it reverse the tactical work that made Guardiola's best teams so hard to play against. But it does force a harder question onto that era: how much faith can a competition ask fans to place in its own guardrails if a case of this scale takes years to reach a reported finding and still has its defining consequence outstanding?
For the football City are trying to play through this cloud, read our analysis of Maresca’s impossible inheritance, the Manchester derby’s tactical aftermath, and the Champions League draw that has already tested this new City.
That is the damage nobody can solve with a single disciplinary notice. The longer the sanction and appeal take, the longer every match involving City will be read through a legal cloud rather than a tactical one.
The appeal changes the timetable, not the significance
An appeal is not proof of innocence. It is a legal right and, in a case this consequential, an entirely predictable move. City are entitled to challenge a decision. The Premier League is entitled to defend its process. Everyone else is entitled to want clarity before another season is swallowed by procedural updates.
The written reasons are the next piece readers need. They should explain what the commission found, how it assessed the evidence, why any charge survived or failed, and how it intends to approach sanction. Until then, confidence should be calibrated. The verdict reported by Ornstein is seismic; the public record is still incomplete.
That distinction is not lawyerly caution for its own sake. It is the difference between reporting and chanting.
The Premier League now has a test of nerve
For City, this is an existential reputational crisis. For the Premier League, it is a test of whether governance can land a plane after spending years circling the airport.
The league cannot control the fact that the case is complicated. It can control whether the eventual outcome is intelligible. Fans should be able to understand the findings, the sanction, the appeal route and the rationale without hiring a barrister or becoming fluent in rulebook archaeology.
The football will continue while that work happens. Haaland will score. Rivals will lose their heads. Managers will call decisions a disgrace. But the old joke that the 115 charges were never going anywhere has lost its shelter.
The number is no longer a meme floating above the Etihad. According to the most authoritative reporting available, it has become a finding.
What comes next decides whether it becomes accountability.
Source note and update standard
This analysis relies on David Ornstein’s September 25, 2026 reporting for The Athletic for the reported commission outcome. The Athletic’s report is based on anonymous sources briefed on the decision; the commission’s full award and sanctions have not yet been publicly published. The background categories of charges, possible sanctions, past English football sanctions and City’s initial position are linked above to contemporaneous Premier League, Manchester City and club-record sources. This article should be updated when the commission publishes its award, when sanctions are announced, or if City formally files an appeal.