Everyone has a verdict on the 115 charges. Few have read the file.
Champions* is the complete account of Manchester City and the Premier League, from Bootham Crescent in 1998 to Anfield in October 2026: the money, the rules, the leak, the trial, and the forty pages that followed. Told from both sides of the line, with every date, figure and quotation drawn from a published source.
Current to 13 October 2026. The commission's findings were published on 29 September. City lodged their appeal on 1 October. Liverpool 0, City 3 on 11 October. This book has all of it, in order.
The Reader's Edition · paperback · ebook · the Case File · the Appeal Briefing
Seven years of argument, conducted on fragments.
Since the first leaked email in November 2018, the biggest disciplinary case in English football has been tried nightly in pubs, podcasts and group chats. Almost none of the people trying it have seen the evidence.
What the argument has been built on
- A 2018 leak of internal emails that nobody outside the newsroom could read in full, or in context.
- A 2020 Court of Arbitration ruling about a different case, brought under different rules, that both sides quote and few have read.
- A charge sheet of 115 lines, reported as a number and sung as a chant.
- Forty redacted pages, published on a Tuesday afternoon, with thirty-seven appendices withheld and the judges' names blacked out.
- A club statement, posted at five o'clock the same afternoon, built around one word: innocent.
What you need to know where you stand
- What the Premier League actually charged, what the commission found proved, and what it did not.
- Where the £949.94 million of recorded sponsorship was found to have come from, and how the commission got there.
- Why CAS cleared City in 2020, and why that did not settle this.
- What the one unproved limb behind "114 of 115" was, and why it matters less than the headline suggests.
- What happens next, in order, with the dates the rules impose.
The question was never only guilty or innocent.
The case is simple. Either City cheated for a decade, or the Premier League and its biggest clubs set out to bring them down. Which one you believe depends on which end of the ground you stand in.
Both terraces have been arguing about documents they could not see. The hearing ran for forty-two days behind closed doors. The decision runs to 160 paragraphs, with the evidence in thirty-seven appendices that nobody outside the case has read. The club's answer runs to one word. The findings that are now public answer most of the questions people have spent seven years shouting about. Almost nobody has sat down and read them in order.
Why that changes everything
Take the central finding. The commission recorded £949.94 million of sponsorship income from the Abu Dhabi companies it calls the "AD Sponsors" between 2009 and 2018. It found that £119.25 million of that was paid by the sponsors themselves and £830.69 million, about 87 per cent, by the owner's company. You can argue with that finding. You cannot argue with it sensibly without knowing how the commission reached it, what City said in reply, and why the commission called the club's explanation "concocted well after the event".
Or take the three things that are most often run together: what Der Spiegel published in 2018, what the Court of Arbitration for Sport decided in 2020, and what the Premier League's commission found in 2026. They are different questions, decided under different rules on different evidence. Most of the public argument collapses the moment you keep them apart. The book keeps them apart on every page.
Read the whole file, from the beginning, from both sides, and you will know what you think, and why. That is a different thing from knowing which end you sit in.
Both sides of the line.
Three strands run through the whole book, so that by the last page you hold the case, the people and the verdict in one place.
The Case
A prologue, twenty-seven chapters and an epilogue, in order: the takeover, the two contracts signed in one day, the £9.9 million shortfall of May 2013, the Football Leaks archive, Lausanne, the charge sheet, the trial near St Paul's and the forty pages. Allegation and finding kept apart throughout.
The Terraces
Eight documentary scenes between the chapters, from both ends: York in December 1998, Wembley in 2011, Old Trafford, Merseyside, the court years, north London, Goodison, and a pub in Bredbury in October 2026. Real supporters under their own names, real banners, real chants, real inflatable bananas.
The Verdict, Decoded
The Core Decision of 29 September 2026, read paragraph by paragraph: what was proved, what was not, the figures, the witnesses the commission said had been dishonest, and what the rules say happens next. Then nine appendices, from the timeline to twenty questions supporters ask.
The people in it, in their own words.
There are no invented characters in this book. These are some of the voices it quotes, as they were published.
Everything that this ownership has said that they're going to deliver, they delivered for me.
I'd be quite happy to see them stripped of everything.
If it's true, we've lived through a period of deception.
A single false accusation.
Had given evidence at the hearing that they knew to be untrue and so had been dishonest.
Nothing has changed.
Thirty-seven chapters and scenes. Nine appendices. One file.
Typeset for reading, not skimming: a prologue, seven parts, eight Terraces, an epilogue, and the reference section every argument needs.
Prologue
- Seventeen Hundred Hours
Part One · Before
- 1Typical City
- Bootham Crescent
- 2Where Were You?
- The Counter
- 3The Last Days of the Old City
Part Two · The Arrival
- 4Deadline Day
- 5Welcome to Manchester
- Backs to the Pitch
- 6Two Contracts in One Day
- 7Ninety-Three Twenty
Part Three · The Rules
- 8The Shortfall
- The Medal
- 9The Settlement
- 10Centurions
Part Four · The Leak
- 11The Archive
- 12"Of Course, We Can Do What We Want"
- 13Ninety-Eight
- 14Two Seasons
- See You in Court
- 15Lausanne
Part Five · The Charges
- 16The Long Game
- 17One Hundred and Fifteen
- 18Istanbul
- Eighty-Nine
- 19One Rule for Them
- Corrupt
- 20Tyranny of the Majority
- 21What the Money Built
Part Six · The Trial
- 22The Room Near St Paul's
- 23Nothing Is Eternal
Part Seven · The Verdict
- 24Virtually All Charges
- 25Innocent
- Bredbury
- 26The Asterisk
- 27Anfield
- Epilogue: Who Really Won?
Appendices A–I
- ATimeline, 1998–2026
- BThe 115 Charges Explained
- CWhat the Commission Found
- DWho's Who
- EGlossary
- FNotes on Sources
- GThe Record, 2008–2026
- HThe Rules, in Plain English
- ITwenty Questions Supporters Ask
Italic entries are the eight Terraces scenes. · Get the first thirty pages free →
Whichever end you stand in.
This book is for you if
- You are a City supporter who wants the actual case, in full, rather than the version your rivals sing.
- You support anyone else and want more than a chant: the figures, the findings and the fifteen years behind them.
- You are going to argue about this in a pub, a podcast or a group chat before the Appeal Board rules, and you would like to be the one who has read it.
- You read The Club, Fever Pitch or Soccernomics and wanted the book about this.
It is not for you if
- You want a book that tells you that you were right all along. It will not.
- You want dramatised scenes, invented dialogue or imagined boardroom conversations. There are none.
- You want the names the commission redacted. The book reports what is public and says plainly what is not.
- You want the ending. The appeal is pending, and the book says so on the first page.
Read the file before the Appeal Board rules.
First edition, current to 13 October 2026. Choose a format. Every edition carries the full text, all nine appendices and the sources.
Digital edition
- The complete text, 321 pages
- All nine appendices and the sources
- Read on any phone, tablet or e-reader
Paperback + ebook + the Case File
- The paperback, 321 pages, matte laminate cover
- The ebook, so you can start reading tonight
- IncludedThe Case File: the timeline, the 115 charges explained, the commission's findings and the twenty questions, as a printable PDF for the pub table
- IncludedThe Appeal Briefing: when the Appeal Board rules, a written briefing on what it decided and what changes, by email
Print edition
- The complete text, typeset for reading
- All nine appendices and the sources
- The cover you can see at the top of this page
The both-ends guarantee
Read it. If it does not change how you argue about this case, whichever end you stand in, email us within thirty days of delivery and you will get a full refund. Keep the Case File.
The appeal is already running.
City lodged their appeal at 7pm on 1 October 2026. Under the Premier League's rules the Appeal Board must hear it within twelve weeks and rule within thirty days of the hearing. The latest date for the hearing is 24 December 2026.
Before you order.
Neither, by design. It sets out the Premier League's case and the commission's findings in full, and it sets out the club's position in its own words at every stage. The eight Terraces scenes are split between both ends of the ground. Readers from both sides will find things in it they would rather not know. That is the point of reading the file.
Every date, score, figure and quotation comes from a published source, and the sources are listed by chapter in Appendix F. Where reliable sources disagree, the book says so or avoids the point. Where a fact rests on a single report, the text signals it. Where the commission redacted a name, the book does not guess.
Yes. The last events in the book took place on 13 October 2026: the publication of the commission's decision on 29 September, the club's statement and Ferran Soriano's video, the appeal lodged on 1 October, the chairman's letter, and Liverpool against City at Anfield on 11 October. The appeal had been lodged but not heard; no sanction had been set. The book says exactly where each open question stands.
The eighteen years before the verdict will not change, and that is most of the book. The ruling will add a chapter to the story, not rewrite it. Reader's edition buyers receive a written Appeal Briefing by email when the Board rules, setting out what it decided and what changes.
No. The published decision redacts them, referring to the sponsors only as "AD Sponsors", and the book does not guess at names. Where an outside analyst has matched one arrangement to a contract reported in 2018, the book reports that as the analyst's conclusion and describes it as such.
Yes. Every financial rule is explained where it first arises, Appendix H sets out the rules in plain English, and Appendix E is a glossary. The book is about money, power and the people who pay for both. Football is where it happens.
321 pages at 5.5 by 8.5 inches, about 67,000 words. The ebook is sent by email within minutes of ordering, as an EPUB that works on Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books and any phone. The paperback is dispatched within two working days.