Man City accused of accepting illicit £30million payment from ‘mystery’ figure in Middle East
MANCHESTER CITY have been accused of accepting a illicit £30m payment from a “mystery” figure from the United Arab Emirates.
According to a new documentary, Uefa chiefs ruled that two separate £15m payments in 2012 and 2013 were used to cover for sponsorship funds that did not actually exist.
While City successfully overturned their two-year European ban in 2020, the allegations are understood to be among the claims that have left the Champions League winners facing 115 separate Premier League financial charges.
And Prem legal experts may be likely to use the Uefa evidence to try to prove their case.
The YouTube documentary, “Britain’s Biggest Football Scandal?” cites a 2020 report from Uefa’s Club Financial Control Board – which was never published.
European financial experts are said to have agreed that the payments were supposed to be from the UAE telecommunications company Etisalat.
Instead, though, the payments allegedly “disguised equity funding” from the accounts of City’s owners, the Abu Dhabi United Group, in breach of FFP regulations.
City are also accused of effectively paying former boss Roberto Mancini via two separate accounts — the official £1.45m salary through the club’s books and the remaining £1.75m from owner Sheikh Mansour’s Abu Dhabi football club, Al Jazira.
Under questioning from Uefa, a City lawyer was said to have named “Jaber Mohamed” as the person who had made the payments, describing him as “a person in the business of providing financial and brokering services to commercial entities in the UAE”.
According to Uefa, City confirmed the named payer as Jaber Mohamed, although the club declined to produce him as a witness.
The YouTube report claims Uefa asked: “The obvious question, not answered at any point in the club’s submission and evidence, is why either Etisalat or ADUG should have needed any financial assistance from a broker in paying the Etisalat sponsorship liabilities.”
City insisted that Etisalat repaid the money in 2015 and the club’s successful appeal to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport saw two of the three judges on the panel rule the claims “remain unsubstantiated”.
CAS also ruled many of the Uefa charges could not be justified because they were “time limited” and filed too late.
But Prem rules have no time restrictions, leaving open the prospect of further scrutiny.
City face 115 Prem charges relating to financial reporting between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons, plus charges of non-cooperation with the League investigation over five years up to and including last term.
The Treble winners, who have vehemently and vociferously maintained their innocence of all claims and charges, declined to comment on the latest allegations.
But there are likely to be private questions from the club over the documentary makers, Sunrise Media, registered in the British Virgin Islands as recently as June 9, amid suspicions that the source of the allegations may be linked to UAE’s Gulf rivals, the state of Qatar.
