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Manchester City have been charged by the Premier League for breaching financial rules more than 100 times in the space of nine seasons.

The charges against the reigning champions relate to financial information regarding revenue, details of manager and player remuneration, UEFA regulations, profitability and sustainability and cooperation with Premier League investigations.

A statement from the league said alleged breaches were committed from September 2009 to the 2017-18 season and will now be referred to an independent commission. City are also facing charges for failing to cooperate with the investigation, which began in December 2018.

It adds that the club is alleged to have breached league rules requiring provision ‘in utmost good faith’ of ‘accurate financial information that gives a true and fair view of the club’s financial position’.

Should Man City be found guilty, they face a range of potential sanctions including a points deduction or even an expulsion – though it could take years to come to a conclusion.   

The club have yet to comment but Sportsmail understands that they are prepared to ‘robustly’ defend themselves.

Between the dates mentioned, Man City won three Premier League titles, an FA Cup and three Carabao Cups.

The Premier League said in a statement: ‘In accordance with Premier League Rule W.82.1, the Premier League confirms that it has today referred a number of alleged breaches of the Premier League Rules by Manchester City Football Club to a Commission.’

City have vehemently denied any breaches of financial rules but the investigation started in December 2018 after German investigative website Der Spiegel published documents from the Football Leaks cache which originated from the Portuguese computer hacker Rui Pinto.

It alleged that City had: overstated sponsorship income, with money being paid by the club’s Abu Dhabi owners instead of sponsors linked to the Gulf state; effectively doubled former manager Roberto Mancini’s wages via a secret contact with an Abu Dhabi club and broke rules over approaches to young players.

The Mail on Sunday has led the way on reporting the story. In July 2021, they reported on emails that appeared to suggest that Man City had millions funnelled into the club by Abu Dhabi to help inflate their income.

Back in February 2020, the club were banned from the Champions League and fined £25million after they were found to have seriously misled European footballing governing body UEFA and broken financial fair play rules.

This was then lifted by the court of arbitration for sport which also reduced the club’s fine to £9m.

The panel at the time said City had shown a ‘disregard’ for the principle that clubs must cooperate with a governing body’s investigations, and conducted an ‘obstruction of the investigations’.