What Happens When a Club Breaks Financial Rules? Points, Fines and Expulsion

The financial rules are spending limits. In the Premier League the limit has been the Profitability and Sustainability Rules: a club's adjusted earnings before tax, set against a loss ceiling. Under Rule E.48 of the 2026/27 Handbook, a PSR calculation showing losses above £105 million is a breach, and the Board may refer it to a Commission under Section W. The £105 million falls by £22 million for each of the 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26 seasons the club spent in the EFL, to a maximum reduction of £66 million.

UEFA keeps its own spending limit, still widely called Financial Fair Play. It is a different formula, applied by a different body. A club can be inside one and outside the other. The League's findings against Manchester City were breaches of both.

From 5 June 2026 the clubs have agreed to replace PSR with the Financial Regulations, for 2026/27 onwards. The Handbook says that replacement does not release a club from PSR for 2025/26 or any earlier season, and does not take away the power to sanction a PSR breach. A case about 2009/10 to 2017/18 is a PSR case. Section W is the code that hears it.

Finding and sanction are two steps. Rule W.63 is the hinge. Once a complaint has been proved, the Commission invites the League and the club to put mitigation and aggravation before it. The powers in Rule W.64 come after that. In Manchester City's case the League has said the sanction will be a further hearing before the Commission, private until the outcome may be published. The finding does not itself deduct a point or levy a fine. It is the reason the second hearing exists.

The menu is a list with an open end. Rule W.64.2 is a fine unlimited in amount, and the Commission may suspend any part of it. Rule W.64.4.2 is a deduction of points already scored or still to be scored. Rule W.64.7 then allows any combination of those penalties, or such other penalty as the Commission shall think fit. There is no tariff. Nothing in the rule converts a given breach into a given number of points.

Expulsion is a recommendation, then a vote. Rule W.64.4.4 lets the Commission recommend that the League expel the club. The expulsion itself is Rule B.6: a special resolution passed by a majority of not less than three-quarters of the members who vote. The League has twenty clubs. Three-quarters of twenty is fifteen, which is the number if every club votes. The threshold is a fraction of the votes cast.

The appeal is a new board, in private, on a clock the Board can move. Rule W.77 appoints an Appeal Board of three. One of them has held judicial office and sits as chair. Rule W.105 requires Section W proceedings to be confidential and heard in private. Where the standard directions apply, Rule W.86 says the hearing concludes no later than twelve weeks after the appeal is filed, lasts no more than five days, and is heard in one block. Rule W.95 requires the decision, with written reasons, within thirty days of the final day. Rule W.85 allows the Appeal Board to vary or disapply those directions, and Rule W.84 allows the parties to agree otherwise. The twelve weeks, the five days and the thirty days are the default this season.

The appeal reviews the record. Rule W.92 makes it a review of the evidence already adduced, with oral argument. Fresh evidence needs leave under Rule W.88, and leave only where the evidence was not available and could not have been obtained with reasonable diligence. That is narrower than a retrial.

After the Board. Rule W.97 says the Appeal Board's decision is final, subject to the arbitration provisions in Section X. Section W does not give a further appeal to the High Court. Reporting says a club may still ask the High Court to review the fairness of the process. That would be a claim in court, outside this rule.

The points deductions the League has actually imposed. These are the PSR cases resolved in 2023/24. They show the menu in use. They are not a scale for any other club.

On 17 November 2023 a Commission imposed an immediate 10-point deduction on Everton for the PSR period ending 2021/22. The Commission found a loss of £124.5 million against the £105 million threshold. Everton had admitted the breach. On 26 February 2024 an Appeal Board substituted six points for the ten. The club had appealed the sanction, not the breach.

On 8 April 2024 a Commission imposed an immediate two-point deduction on Everton for an admitted breach of £16.6 million in the period ending 2022/23. Everton appealed, then withdrew. The joint statement of 17 January 2025 records that the two points remained in place for 2023/24.

On 18 March 2024 a Commission imposed an immediate four-point deduction on Nottingham Forest for an admitted breach, by £34.5 million, of a £61 million threshold for the period ending 2022/23. The threshold was lower than £105 million because the club had spent two seasons of the assessment period in the Championship. On 7 May 2024 an Appeal Board dismissed the appeal. The four points stayed.

Relegation is what the table does, or what an expulsion vote does. Rule W.64 does not list relegation. A points deduction changes the numbers the table is built from. If the club then finishes in the bottom three, the competition rules relegate it in the ordinary way. The sanction was the deduction.

Expulsion is the other route, and it is not a sporting result. The Commission recommends it under Rule W.64.4.4. It happens only if the clubs pass the Rule B.6 resolution. A fine, of any size, leaves the club in the division.

The finding is not the punishment. Publication of a decision that the breach is proved does not move a point or a pound. Manchester City's findings are public. No sanction has been imposed. The hearing Rule W.63 requires has not produced one.

The open-ended penalty is wide, and it does not name a division. Rule W.64.7 lets the Commission go outside the list. The two ways a club leaves the Premier League remain the ones above: a points deduction that the table turns into relegation, or the expulsion vote.

The Premier League limits losses. The American leagues limit pay. A salary cap constrains what a club pays a player. It holds only if the club cannot arrange for someone else to pay him. Circumvention rules exist for that second arrangement: a sponsor induced to contract with the player, a side deal, value the cap sheet never shows.

The penalties are built to bind the next decision, not only to collect a cheque. Forfeited draft picks constrain a future roster. Suspensions, and a ban on the person who arranged the deal, change who can do business with the league. A fine is real, and against a club that can afford it, it is the part of the penalty that is easiest to absorb.

The account of how that was applied, and why the sanction falls on the club that arranged the payment rather than on the player who received it, is What Salary Cap Circumvention Actually Means.

The instruments differ. An American cap penalty runs under a collective agreement. A union may have agreed that it is final. A Premier League financial sanction is imposed by an independent Commission under rules the clubs adopted. It can be appealed to a new three-person board. Expulsion is not the Commission's to finish. It goes back to the clubs, and it needs three-quarters of those who vote.

Case tracker. Manchester City, as of 12 October 2026. The Premier League published the Commission's findings on Tuesday 29 September 2026. The club was found guilty of all charges of serious breaches of the League's financial rules over the nine seasons from 2009/10 to 2017/18, and of the majority of the failure-to-cooperate charges. The BBC reports that as 114 of the 115 charges, and reports that the arrangements disguised secret funding of more than £830 million. The findings include sham contracts with commercial partners, misstated accounts, and breaches of both Premier League and UEFA limits. The League says the investigation began in December 2018 and the complaint was issued in February 2023. No sanction has been imposed. Sanction is a separate private hearing before the same Commission, and no date has been published. The hearing can run in parallel with the appeal. Precedent suggests it comes after. The club lodged its appeal on Thursday 1 October 2026, saying the ruling has "clear material errors, of law, principle and fact and is unsafe." On this season's standard directions, a decision on that appeal falls in January 2027, and the Appeal Board can move the timetable. Both sides can appeal a sanction. ESPN puts a possible window for that further appeal in May or June 2027. The FA could open an investigation of its own.

Whether this season's clock applies. The twelve-week hearing, the five-day cap and the thirty-day decision are the 2026/27 standard directions. Sky Sports reports that City may argue they do not apply, because the club was charged in 2023. That point has not been decided. If the argument succeeds, the January timetable goes with the directions.

Whether the sanction hearing waits. Sky Sports reports that the sanction hearing can sit while the appeal runs. The BBC reports that precedent suggests a sanction is imposed only after the appeal, and that this is not guaranteed. No date has been published.

An appeal against the sanction. Rule W.76 lets the club and the League each challenge a Commission's decision, including the sanction. ESPN's May or June 2027 window assumes the directions are used in full and that a sanction has already been imposed. It is a projection, not a date the League has fixed.

The FA. The BBC reports that the Football Association is considering the decision and will take action where appropriate. That could include an investigation of its own. None has been announced.