Top football teams in countries like England, Spain, and Germany are enormous businesses, as well as being sport clubs. They hundreds of millions of dollars every year through ticket sales, broadcasting, sponsorships, merchandise, and other commercial activities.
And few clubs have experienced a more dramatic rise in recent years than Manchester City, in the English Premier League. Manchester City was acquired by Sheikh Mansour (pare of the Abu Dhabi royal family) via the Abu Dhabi United Group in September 2008 for roughly £250 million. They upgraded training facilities and purchased some incredibly high-profiule players (including Sergio Aguero and Carlos Tevez).
And based off this investment, the club has become one of the most successful teams in world football. They have won multiple championships and trophies (including the Champions league) and are currently leading the English Premier League again this year.
But Manchester City have also been at the centre of a major controversy over its finances. At the end of September, an independent commission ruling has found Manchester City guilty of 114 serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules.
According to the ruling, the club used a system in which sponsorship agreements were structured in a way that made its commercial income appear much larger than it actually was. Basically, the owners of the club were giving Manchester City money, but disguising it as income from sponsors. More than £830 million in sponsorship funding was allegedly disguised in this way.
So today, I’d like to use the Manchester City case to learn some useful English vocabulary for talking about financial scandals, business practices, rules, investigations, and deception. All of this vocabulary has come from a BBC news article that I will link in the description and you can try to read yourself!
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