Financial

The Spanish coach won 20 trophies during a glittering 10 years as City manager before departing in May.

Former Manchester ‌City manager Pep Guardiola has spoken out ⁠in support ⁠of the Premier League club after they were found guilty of serious ⁠breaches of financial rules.

The Spaniard handed over to former assistant Enzo Maresca at the end ⁠of last season after a decade in charge.

“I want every single @ManCity fan to know I am here; more than ever. I am, always have ‌been, always will, be behind my club, my owner, my chairman, Ferran, the players, staff, Enzo and you, our unique supporters,” Guardiola said on Wednesday ⁠in a first reaction on his ⁠X account.

“Let me be clear: we will get through this together. I love you all.”

City’s Chief Executive Ferran Soriano addressed staff in a video on Tuesday in which he rejected the independent commission’s findings.

Guardiola ⁠took charge of City in 2016 and under his management, ⁠they won six Premier League titles – ⁠including four in a row – three FA Cups, five League Cups and the Champions League.

The Premier League charges, relating ‌to “sham” commercial contracts used as part of schemes to inflate revenue and understate costs by more ‌than 900 ‌million pounds ($1.2bn) over nearly a decade, cover the period from 2009-18.

In doing so, they concealed the true state of their finances and avoided breaching Premier League and UEFA spending limits during a period in which they won three league titles.

An independent commission found the club guilty on all charges related to breaches of financial rules over the nine-year period.

They have also been found guilty of most of the charges they faced in relation to a failure to cooperate with a Premier League investigation.

City, who continue to deny any wrongdoing, have said they will appeal and have until Friday to do so.

The ruling has sent shockwaves through English football and cast doubt over the future of a club that has become a European giant.

The likely punishment is uncertain but according to Premier League rules, City could face a substantial points deduction, a fine or even expulsion from the top division.

Everton and Nottingham Forest were handed points deductions in the 2023/24 season for single breaches of financial sustainability rules.

On that basis, City would likely face relegation given the sheer weight of the case against them.

There is speculation they could even be stripped of their titles.

“If the appeal fails, Manchester City cannot stay in the league, they have to suffer. And I say that as a supporter and a fan,” said the club’s former chairman, David Bernstein.

Another factor is a potential flood of compensation claims that could cost the club hundreds of millions.

Former Liverpool managing director Christian Purslow told the BBC that clubs would be “queueing up to seek compensation”.

Manchester City say they are ‘disappointed and surprised’ by the verdict and will appeal.

Manchester City have been found guilty of ⁠all charges ⁠of serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules between the 2009/10 and 2017/18 seasons, the league has said in ⁠a statement.

City were charged in February 2023 with breaches of the league’s financial rules spanning nine seasons following ⁠a four-year investigation.

The club said in a statement it would appeal.

An independent commission found that City “arranged ‘sham’ contracts (which ‌misrepresented the true agreement between the parties) with a number of its commercial partners”, the league said on Tuesday.

The league added that the commission had found City used schemes “to artificially inflate the club’s revenues, and reduce its costs, by more than 900 million pounds during the affected period, to appear to comply with financial rules”.

“The ⁠core decision … details how the club systematically ⁠broke Premier League Rules for nearly a decade,” said Richard Masters, the chief executive of the Premier League.

“There are elements of the case that remain to be ⁠decided, including, importantly, what sanction must follow for these breaches.”

City, who deny any wrongdoing, said ⁠they were “disappointed and surprised” by the ⁠commission’s opinion.

“The club is innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League and a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its ‌positions, relating to this case,” the club said.

“Manchester City FC will now pursue the appeal avenues open to it, on the ‌basis ‌that the opinion contains clear material errors, of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe.”

The Premier League has confirmed that Manchester City have been found guilty of all charges related to breaches of Premier League financial rules between 2009-10 and 2017-18.

An independent Commission found that during that time period, the club arranged “sham contracts” with a number of its commercial partners, as well as “relying on sham agreements to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs”.

The statement also said that City were guilty of the majority of charges in relation to its failure to co-operate, but an exact figure was not given.

More to follow.

Investors shrug off AI safety concerns and Iran war, sending market to a new peak.

Wall Street’s Nasdaq stock exchange has hit an all-time high, shrugging off concerns about AI safety risks, sky-high tech valuations and the energy shock caused by the United States’ war on Iran.

The Nasdaq Composite index, which is dominated by US tech giants such as Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft, rose 0.45 percent on Tuesday, taking its gains to date this year to more than 17 percent.

The Nasdaq 100, a narrower index that tracks 100 top companies, jumped 0.82 percent.

The S&P 500, the most popular measure of the overall US stock market, closed essentially flat.

Monolithic Power Systems, a Florida-based manufacturer of power circuits, and Canadian e-commerce company Shopify led the gains, surging 8.1 percent and 7.1 percent, respectively.

Micron Technology, one of the world’s top three memory chip makers along with South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, rose 5 percent.

Chip giant Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, gained 0.7 percent, while Apple edged up 0.2 percent.

Meta Platforms, which soared 11.4 percent on Monday on excitement surrounding its new AI assistant Muse, dropped 0.63 percent.

Major Asian stock markets opened higher on Wednesday, with Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 and South Korea’s Kospi up about 1.4 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively, in morning trading.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index opened lower, falling more than 0.7 percent during the morning trade.

Oil prices were largely flat on Tuesday, after falling more than 3 percent the previous day amid improving oil flows out of the Gulf and hopes of renewed diplomacy between Washington and Tehran.

Futures for Brent crude, the international benchmark, were trading at $99.18 a barrel as of 01:00 GMT.

⁠US President Donald Trump on Tuesday told reporters that US officials ‌held a “very good” meeting with their Iranian counterparts on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, hours after using his address to the session to warn that he could “annihilate” Iran if Tehran did not agree to a deal on the war.

Trump, whose war on Iran is nearing the seven-month mark, said US and Iranian officials would hold another round of talks in the “very near future”.

Jay Goldberg, a senior analyst at Seaport Research Partners in San Francisco, said signs of diplomatic progress between the US and Iran had refocused investor attention on the potential of AI to generate profits after years of multibillion-dollar investments.

“We have been searching for a clear consumer use case to justify the AI spend, and many see Muse as just that product,” Goldberg told Al Jazeera.

“Personally, I think Muse is just a step in the right direction; there will be better products – probably soon – but Muse is one of those things that are so useful they get investors excited about AI prospects again,” Goldberg said.