Mancini's Double Contract and 115 Charges: Manchester City Faces a Historic Punishment in English Football

Sunday, in the press room of the Italy national team ahead of the Nations League match against Turkey, Roberto Mancini sat before the microphone and said a sentence I have heard him repeat in various forms over the past seven years: "That is not my problem."

The press-room lights fell on his face. I noticed the way he said it — not defensive, not irritated, but as if he had been mentally preparing for it for a long time. "After all, this is not new," he continued. "Roughly every four or five years, this issue comes up again. The existence of a double contract is not my problem — perhaps it is their problem."

I sat on an old chair in a rented apartment in Hai Phong, replayed the clip three times, and remembered the night of November 2026, when I was seventeen, had just failed an important exam, and stayed up reading Der Spiegel's documents about Man City on a laptop with worn keys. Back then I did not fully understand the numbers. Now, after nine years of covering athletics and football, I realise the same event can be told in two languages: the language of the courtroom and the language of the running track.

The old laptop taught me: slow does not mean late, it just means telling the story differently.

Context: 115 charges and a verdict that cannot be reversed in the public mind

Last Friday, Manchester City were found to have breached the Premier League's financial rules. Multiple reports indicate that an independent panel upheld the majority of the 115 charges against the club. This is a number anyone who has followed English football over the past decade knows sits at the centre of a long, complex legal battle full of corners the press usually only touches on the surface.

One of the most notable charges concerns Manchester City failing to provide accurate information about payments to players and managers between 2026 and 2026. This is the period that shaped the club's empire — from a mid-table side in Manchester into the dominant force in England after owners from Abu Dhabi bought the club in 2026.

In 2026, Der Spiegel published documents showing that Mancini's base salary of £1.45 million per year was doubled through money he received for consulting work for a club in Abu Dhabi. This is the core of the concept of the "double contract" that Mancini was just questioned about.

Mancini led Manchester City to the first Premier League title in their history in 2026, sealed by Sergio Aguero's goal in the 90th+4th minute against Queens Park Rangers — a moment I remember vividly because it was the first time I saw my father cry over football. A year earlier, the Italian manager had also helped Manchester City win the FA Cup, ending a 35-year trophy drought.

What I want to put on the table from the start is this: the real story is not about Mancini, but about the payment structure of a club operated like a multinational corporation. Mancini was simply the signature. The system that created two parallel streams of money for one person is the system that deserves dissection.

Behind the numbers: how the double-contract mechanism operates

Picture a 1,500m runner. She is paid for her performances on the track. At the same time, she also receives a consulting fee from another club abroad. Her total income rises, but on the accounts of her home club, the visible figure does not reflect reality. Under the Premier League's financial rules — especially those on related-party transactions and salary-cap compliance — this is serious.

Mancini's £1.45 million per year at Manchester City sounds modest compared to the salaries of today's top managers. But double it, add the bonuses from the Abu Dhabi consulting contract, and the picture changes entirely.

A striking detail: Mancini's actual "salary" was twice the figure published in the books, and the difference flowed through a club in Abu Dhabi — an entity directly linked to Manchester City's ownership.

This is the point that Vietnamese football reporters often overlook when translating foreign news. We say "Manchester City broke financial rules", but rarely explain exactly how. The mechanism here rests on three pillars: the transparency of contracts, the fairness of related-party transactions, and the completeness of financial reporting.

Manchester City have always maintained their innocence throughout the investigation. After the verdict was announced on Friday, Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak reiterated that position. In a letter to supporters, he wrote: "The Premier League process still has a long way to go. Our confidence and determination to prove the club's innocence remain as strong as when the process began."

That sentence matters more than it appears. Al Mubarak did not speak of accepting a punishment. He spoke of a process still underway, and of faith in the possibility of reversal. Manchester City's legal position is not closed.

Behind every tactical diagram is a person trembling, hoping, and forgetting how to breathe.

What will happen to Manchester City: points deduction or relegation?

The punishment for Manchester City has not yet been determined. However, journalist Ben Jacobs has warned that the Premier League is pushing for a particularly severe sanction, potentially including a record points deduction or relegation.

"From what I understand, the Premier League is pushing for a significant, possibly record, landmark and extremely severe points deduction, even relegation for Manchester City," Jacobs said on talkSPORT.

He also revealed that if Manchester City were removed from the Premier League, the EFL could review the ruling and support the Premier League's position, seeking to prevent the club from participating in EFL competitions.

"So in the worst-case scenario, Manchester City risk being removed from professional football entirely," Jacobs warned.

This is where I need to name something English media often gloss over: a points deduction and a relegation penalty are not the same in nature, and conflating the two has ruined much of the discussion about Manchester City.

A points deduction is a correction within the same division. It says "this team broke the rules, they will lose a certain number of points". Everton were deducted 10 points, later reduced to 6. Nottingham Forest were deducted 4. These numbers have precedent and are predictable.

Relegation is a restructuring of the system. It says "this team no longer has the standing to remain in this competition". In the history of the Premier League, no club has ever been relegated purely for breaching financial rules. Juventus were relegated over the Calciopoli scandal, but that was match-fixing, not finance.

This makes the scenario Jacobs describes an unprecedented turning point. And every unprecedented turning point opens a bigger question: once this precedent is set, who will it be applied to next?

Why does this story return every four or five years?

Mancini said "roughly every four or five years, this issue comes up again". He was describing a phenomenon I have seen in athletics — the cycle of doping scandals. A case erupts, shocks, then settles. Four years later, at an Olympics or a world championship, it resurfaces in a different form.

There is a logic at work here. Financial investigations in football do not end linearly. They move with the cycles of media, of broadcast rights, of transfer windows and of elections at federations.

In 2026, Der Spiegel published its documents. In 2026, UEFA opened an investigation. In 2026, Manchester City were banned from the Champions League for two years, then overturned it at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. In 2026, the Premier League published 115 charges. In 2026, hearings began. Now we are at the verdict stage.

Each milestone is a few years apart. That is not coincidence. It is the rhythm of a vast bureaucracy trying to process a financial system far more complex than the tools it has at its disposal.

A counter-intuitive view: Mancini is right to say "not my problem"

I will say something many fans may object to: legally and structurally, Mancini is right when he says the double contract is "not my problem".

Mancini is an employee. He signed what his agent and the club put in front of him. He did not design the payment structure, did not prepare the financial reports, did not file documents with the Premier League. When an athlete is paid through two different channels and signs both contracts through proper legal procedure, responsibility for the transparency of that structure lies with the employer, not the employee.

But this is exactly where I want to pause a little longer, because it reflects a bigger problem in how we view responsibility in professional sport.

When a track athlete is caught doping, we tend to blame the individual first. We rarely ask: who supplied the substance? Which team doctor prescribed it? How did the federation's medical system test it? Collective responsibility is often obscured by individual responsibility, because individual responsibility makes an easier story.

When we accuse Mancini, we are accusing the last signature in a chain of decisions in which he is only the third or fourth link. It is the easiest way, but not the right one.

The real question is not "did Mancini know?". Very likely he did. The real question is: who designed this structure, who approved it, who signed the financial reports submitted to the Premier League, and who decided that concealing it was possible for nearly a decade.

Mancini said "perhaps it is their problem". Who is "they"? If "they" are the people who designed the system, then Mancini is pointing at the heart of the matter. If "they" are the investigators, then Mancini is deflecting. I read the sentence in the first sense.

A tactical blind spot: nobody prosecutes the system

In athletics, I once watched a debate over whether an athlete's result should be annulled after his coach was found to have breached the rules. The athlete himself was not directly charged. He was simply inside the system of a person who was. In the end, his result stood, but public trust in him was permanently damaged.

The same is happening to Manchester City.

Of the 115 charges, most concern financial transactions carried out across many years, many entities, many countries. No individual has been charged. No specific figure has been named. The club, as a legal entity, is the sole defendant.

This is the biggest tactical blind spot of the whole affair: we are trying to punish a system by punishing an entity, and when that entity changes personnel, the system lives on inside other clubs.

Manchester City are not the only club owned by City Football Group. CFG holds stakes in clubs in many countries — New York City FC, Melbourne City, Mumbai City, Girona, Palermo, and others. This multi-club ownership model exists everywhere in modern football. If the payment structure Manchester City used is part of that model, then the right question is not "did Manchester City break the rules?" but "how many other clubs operate in exactly the same way?".

The Premier League only has jurisdiction over clubs in England. UEFA has jurisdiction in Europe. FIFA has global jurisdiction. But between these three layers there are always gaps. And smart financial systems always find those gaps.

Why relegation is harder than a points deduction

If the Premier League truly wants to impose a record points deduction on Manchester City, it can do so relatively easily in procedural terms. A points deduction is a penalty clearly defined in the league's rules. Everton lost 10 points, later reduced to 6. Nottingham Forest lost 4. There is precedent.

Relegation is different. For a club to be relegated for financial breaches, the Premier League would need to build a precedent that has never existed. And in doing so, it would raise a reverse question: if they can do this to Manchester City, can they do it to any other club?

This is the fear that exists in the boardrooms of major clubs. Every Premier League club has spending it does not want examined under a magnifying glass. Once the precedent of relegation for financial breaches is set, it becomes a weapon that can be used for any purpose, including the internal politics of the league.

If Manchester City were relegated, other clubs would not only look at Manchester City. They would look at themselves, and at their votes in Premier League meetings.

That is why I believe the final penalty will be harsher than anything seen before in England, but not harsh enough to end Manchester City's top-flight career. A heavy points deduction, transfer restrictions, a fine — but probably not relegation.

Still, that possibility remains, and it would be a shock with more reach than any football event of this decade.

What I learned from an old laptop and a midnight phone call

Back to the personal story I mentioned at the start. On that November 2026 night, I stayed up reading Der Spiegel's documents on a worn-key laptop. I did not understand all the English financial terms. But I remember one detail that made me stop: there were sums of money passing through so many intermediaries that no one could trace the actual flow.

I closed the laptop, looked out the window, and thought of the 1,500m track at My Dinh Stadium in 2026 — where I first watched Nguyen Thi Oanh compete live. Back then I realised something simple: in athletics, athletes run on the same track, and results are measured by a clock. In football finance, there is no shared track and no shared clock. That is why financial disputes never end.

There are calls no one answers, but both ends of the line are healing.

In 2026, when the pandemic halted all competitions, I called my old coach, who had guided me in tenth grade, just to ask: "Teacher, if we cannot compete, how do we live?" She told me she was using Zoom to train a nationwide group of young athletes, each running in place in front of a camera, sending heartbeat videos. I immediately asked to join that class as a note-taker.

During those months, I wrote a series on athletes with no finish line. And I learned something useful for today's article: when there is no clear finish line, people start paying attention to the smallest details — heart rate, breathing, the eyes of the person next to them. That is exactly what is happening to Manchester City right now. No one knows the final destination, and so every detail in the file becomes important.

The truth lies in accounting details, not in the verdict

I want to talk about a concept I learned from my own work as a journalist: the verifiability of numbers.

When I write about Nguyen Thi Oanh, I check every track parameter of hers from 2026 to now. Every second, every hundredth. I call coaches to verify what I am unsure of. I never guess. That principle came from a time I misspelled Oanh's name three times in an 800-word article, and the national team coach texted me to correct it that same night.

Applying that principle to the Manchester City story, I see a large gap in Vietnamese coverage. Most articles say "Manchester City breached 115 charges", but few explain what those 115 charges actually are. How many relate to financial reporting? How many to payments to players and managers? How many to sponsorship contracts? How many to failure to cooperate with the investigation?

A verdict is only an answer. But the questions are what shape the story. And the real story of Manchester City lies in each transaction line, each consulting contract, each gap between the published and the real figure.

The truth lies in the accounting details, and accounting details never make attractive headlines. That is why we argue about Mancini instead of arguing about the payment structure.

A stadium is not big because of the seats; it is big because of the stories that dare to stay.

Manchester City could win — and what would that mean?

There is a possibility I have not seen fully discussed in the media: Manchester City could win the case.

In 2026, Manchester City overturned a two-year Champions League ban at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. They have experience in international legal battles. They have top-tier lawyers. And more importantly, they have time.

If Manchester City win fully, or win most of it, what happens to public trust in football's financial rules?

This is the question I consider more important than the punishment itself. If one of the richest clubs in the world can defeat the governing body of the richest league in the world in a legal battle lasting years, then what purpose do football's financial rules serve?

There are two answers. First: they exist to protect the fairness of the competition. Second: they exist to create the illusion of fairness, while big clubs always find a way around them.

I believe the second is truer. But I also believe the existence of rules, despite their limitations, is better than their total absence. An imperfect system is still better than no system at all.

What I thought about when I replayed the Mancini clip a third time

On the third viewing of the clip, I noticed a small detail. Mancini, as he said "that is not my problem", turned slightly to his left. That is the direction he tends to look when answering difficult questions.

I have watched enough Mancini press conferences to recognise that. He is a man who won Manchester City's first Premier League title. He lived through moments of glory and painful defeats. He led Italy to Euro 2026 glory at Wembley. And now he is answering a question about a contract signed more than a decade ago.

Behind every tactical diagram, every contract, every verdict, there is a person trying to stand upright. Sometimes that person is the hero. Sometimes that person is the one being questioned. Most of the time, that person is just someone trying to do their job in a system they do not fully control.

Manchester City are a system larger than any individual. Mancini was simply one of the people who passed through it. The people who designed the complex payment structures may never face the public. The people who signed the financial reports may never be named.

When football shifts from rules to systems

What I take from this whole story is not "is Manchester City guilty or innocent". That is a question only the independent panel can answer. What I take is this: football has shifted from a sport with rules of play into a financial system with complex operating rules, and we — the fans — are still trying to understand it in the language of a sport.

When I watch Manchester City play, I see football. When I watch their financial lawsuits, I see accounting. These two worlds are connected, but they operate by different rules. And the deepest frustration for fans is not whether their club wins or loses, but that they cannot see the whole picture to form their own judgement.

In athletics, that would never happen. You run the 800m in 1 minute 58 seconds, that is your result. There is no years-long investigation into whether that time was influenced by hidden payments.

Football is more complex. And that complexity is not only Manchester City's problem or the Premier League's. It is the problem of an entire business model that has become the norm over two decades.

Looking ahead

I will not end this article with a conclusion. I will end with something I want to see in the coming months.

I want to see an independent panel not only issue a verdict on the breaches, but publish its full reasoning. I want to see the contracts dissected in public light, line by line, sum by sum, signature by signature. I want to see the people who designed these structures named, not to shame them, but to make the system more transparent.

And I want to see other clubs look at Manchester City and ask themselves: "Could our structures survive this light?"

That is the only question that truly matters. The punishment of Manchester City is an event. But the system it exposes is a mirror. And that mirror is reflecting the image of modern football as a whole.

Manchester City may be deducted points. They may be relegated. They may win and keep winning. But whatever the outcome, one thing has changed: we can no longer talk about football without talking about accounting.

That may be the greatest loss of all.

Roberto Mancini will not be the last person to stand before a microphone and say "that is not my problem". But he may be the first to say it accurately, in structural terms. And if so, the people who truly need to answer the next questions are not him, but those who asked the questions.

I will follow this story. And I will write about it. Not because I know the answers, but because I believe the right questions matter more than early answers.