Maresca says Manchester City will win their appeal against the Premier League verdict

Manchester City manager Enzo Maresca says he has full faith that the club will win its appeal after an independent commission found it had broken the Premier League’s financial rules. Al Jazeera, citing AFP, and the BBC both report his comments from a news conference on Friday 9 October 2026, his first since the verdict was announced last week.

Maresca said he completely trusts the club, its owner, chief executive, sporting director and the wider organisation, and that this is why he joined. Asked whether the club’s titles over the past 15 years are now tainted, he said absolutely not. He said he knows the effort the players, the club and then manager Pep Guardiola put in. On the case itself, he said the right moment to speak about it is when the club wins the appeal.

Al Jazeera reports that the commission found City arranged sham contracts with some commercial partners to inflate revenues and cut costs, covering nine seasons from 2009 to 2018, and that the club continues to deny wrongdoing. The BBC reports that the commission’s findings relate to the 2009-10 to 2017-18 seasons, and that the club says the ruling contains clear material errors of law, principle and fact and is unsafe. The two outlets describe the number of charges upheld differently, so we are not giving a count here.

Al Jazeera says the club could face a heavy points penalty, which could lead to relegation or even expulsion, if it fails to overturn the verdict. We have not seen any official statement on possible penalties and treat that as the outlet’s assessment.

Maresca, who was appointed in June after Guardiola stepped down, said his players are not affected by the noise and are focused on football. City have won all five of their Premier League games this season and visit Liverpool on Sunday.