How Manchester City case is different to Chelsea’s after Blues got lenient punishment | OneFootball

Manchester City have been found guilty of 114 of the 115 charges relating to alleged breaches of the Premier League’s financial regulations.

The Citizens have confirmed they will appeal against the damning findings.

Unless their appeal is successful, the club could be fined, docked points or even expelled from the competition altogether.

Some of their supporters are pointing to Chelsea’s lenient punishment as a sign their club may also get away without a major penalty.

The Blues admitted to 74 breaches of football regulations and received only a £10 million fine and a suspended ban from registering new players for two transfer windows.

However, a similar punishment for Man City is unlikely due to key differences between the two cases.

What are the differences?

After the forced sale of Roman Abramovich’s stake in Chelsea, the new owners BlueCo made several worrying discoveries in their audit of the club’s financial records.

They became aware that the previous regime had sanctioned illegal payments to help facilitate transfers for the likes of Eden Hazard, Willian and David Luiz.

BlueCo self-reported their findings to UEFA, the Premier League and the Football Association (FA).

In City’s case, formal charges against the Manchester giants were announced in February 2023 after an investigation began following German publication Der Spiegel’s release of leaked documents about the club’s finances.

The Premier League found them guilty of systematic financial deception, including arranging ‘sham’ contracts with its commercial partners as part of a scheme to artificially inflate the club’s revenues by £830m.

The Citizens have maintained a stance of total innocence regarding these allegations from the outset.

Chelsea made illegal payments, totalling more than £47.5m, out of the club, which were not reported to the league.

But after self-reporting the issues, they have fully cooperated with the investigations by voluntarily providing thousands of documents.

Man City, on the other hand, have chosen aggressive, high-stakes legal battles over cooperation.

Chelsea were also helped by the fact that Abramovich was no longer involved with the club in any way.

City’s current Abu Dhabi ownership cannot claim a change of leadership, who have been at the helm of affairs since 2008.