Could history be rewritten? Guardiola, Man City and the 115 charges

The charges are thought to relate to allegations first made in 2018 by German media outlet Der Spiegel, which published leaked internal City emails.

It claimed that the documents showed the club had inflated sponsorship revenue from state-owned airline Etihad and state-controlled telecoms firm Etisalat, by disguising direct investment from its holding company - Mansour's Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) - as sponsorship income, by channelling money through the companies' accounts.

This, it was alleged, was a means of getting FFP rules introduced by Uefa in 2011, and PSR brought in by the Premier League in 2012, two similar systems of spending control designed to limit clubs' losses. City and the companies denied wrongdoing.

There then followed further allegations of misreporting financial information centred on documents that claimed to show secret 'off-the-books' payments to previous manager Roberto Mancini via consultancy fees from a club in Abu Dhabi, and giving players more money than was officially going through the accounts so that recorded spending was less than it actually was. Mancini denied any wrongdoing.

In short, City effectively stand accused of subverting Premier League rules that clubs had agreed to comply with, and of distorting the competition over multiple seasons.

City - who have always denied they are state-owned - said the emails were obtained illegally, and that they were an "attempt to damage the club's reputation", insisting they were innocent.

What will the ruling mean?

If City are cleared of the more serious charges, Guardiola's legacy will be viewed as secure.

But if the club is found to have broken financial rules, many will conclude that the wrongdoing helped City to spend more money on better players, and to lay the foundations which Guardiola then built on to achieve so much success, culminating in the Treble triumph of 2023.

In 2024, Jose Mourinho pointedly insisted he won his three Premier League titles with Chelsea "fairly and cleanly", after being asked about Guardiola making a six-finger gesture after a match, signifying the haul of titles he had won.

Mourinho also joked that he might still be retrospectively awarded a Premier League winners' medal, if City ended up having titles stripped from them as punishment. As manager of Manchester United, Mourinho had finished second to City in the 2017-18 season.

If City were to be found guilty, there would likely be plenty of references by rival fans to the titles that Guardiola won by just one point (over Liverpool in both 2019 and 2022) and two points (over Arsenal in 2024).

Of course, if City were found guilty, it would be impossible to know if Guardiola would have won less - and how much less - if the club had adhered to the rules.

But such is the scale and seriousness of the charges, in such an event, critics will inevitably argue that his many accomplishments are tainted, even those that occurred after the period the case relates to.

In 2019, with City under investigation by Uefa, Guardiola was directly asked by BBC Sport if his legacy could be affected by the controversy.

"No, absolutely not," he replied.

But another Premier League club serves as a warning. There is now some scepticism towards the various trophies Chelsea won in the 2010s, after the club was found to have made a catalogue of secret payments to agents over transfers, between 2011 and 2018.

Even if the charges levelled at City are eventually upheld, however, many of the club's fans would no doubt argue that whatever decisions may have been made behind the scenes by some executives, they should not negate Guardiola's visionary leadership, his tactical genius or the impact he has had on the game.

"Pep Guardiola's detractors may try to argue that an asterisk should be added to the trophies he has won with Manchester City because the club's alleged misrepresentation of revenue and costs gave them a competitive advantage on the field," says Tim Jotischky, a reputation expert at The PHA Group.

"But, regardless of whether the club is found guilty of some or all the charges, I don't believe it will damage his legacy."

But apart from the allegations, what about the suggestion that much of City's recent success is due to the vast wealth of their Abu Dhabi owner?

For instance, just a year after Guardiola's arrival at the Etihad Stadium, La Liga president Javier Tebas accused City of "financial doping" in comments the club described as "ill-informed and in parts pure fiction".

In 2019, the then-Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said City were in "fantasia land", where they could buy whoever they wanted.

Guardiola responded by saying the insinuation that City were spending their way to success "bothers" him.

"In an era when sovereign wealth funds and private equity have transformed the nature of football ownership, Manchester City's spending is not disproportionate compared to their closest rivals," argues Jotischky.

"Guardiola's reputation rests on his wider impact, his ability to reinvent the way others thought about the game and his influence has permeated throughout the football pyramid… it is undeniable that Guardiola's impact extends beyond trophy count."

What has Guardiola said?

Back in 2019, while City were being investigated by Uefa, and in the wake of the allegations about payments to Mancini, Guardiola reacted furiously when asked during a news conference following the FA Cup final if he had ever received similar payments.

Guardiola replied, "Honestly, do you think I deserve to have this type of question, the day we won the [domestic] Treble, did I receive money? Are you accusing me of receiving money?"

The journalist involved explained that he had previously asked City, but in the absence of an answer, felt he had little choice but to question the manager.

Guardiola has always backed his bosses publicly, even when, in 2020, the club was given a two-year ban from European competitions by Uefa for alleged FFP breaches, a suspension that was eventually overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Two years later, Guardiola said he would walk away from City if he felt the club's hierarchy had ever lied to him. "They explain and I believe them," he said.

"Some believe his defence of City's owners was misplaced, but it's hard to think that many employees would have acted differently if placed in the same position," says Jotischky.

In 2023, after his club had been charged by the Premier League, Guardiola accused City's rivals of pre-judging the case.

"My first thought is we're already being condemned," he said. "It's the same with Uefa, we were already condemned. The club proved we were completely innocent."

He also urged the Premier League to speed up its handling of the case, calling for a verdict "this afternoon" or "tomorrow".

The fact that City had been accused of failing to co-operate with the league's investigation did not seem to trouble him.

It was notable that Guardiola also said: "In the end, I know fairly that what we won we won on the pitch. We don't have any doubts."

His most recent comments on the case came in February 2025, when he said he expected to learn the outcome of a hearing that had finished weeks earlier, "in one month".

To the frustration of many, including him too perhaps, that prediction has proved wide of the mark. More than three years since City were charged by the Premier League, the case drags on.

Since then, Guardiola has added the Treble, his sixth Premier League title and a domestic cup double to the remarkable collection of silverware he has achieved while in Manchester.

He must now hope that a decade of Premier League history - and his part in it - does not one day need to be re-written.