The Man City verdict Liverpool fans have waited years for finally arrived this week. An independent commission ruled that Manchester City used ‘sham’ contracts worth £830m to inflate commercial revenue between 2009 and 2018, pending appeal. That ruling doesn’t touch the record books. The Premier League trophy stayed where it was in every one of those seasons.
For Jurgen Klopp’s players, the news reads as vindication rather than celebration. In January 2019, John Stones cleared the ball off Liverpool’s line at the Etihad with just 11mm to spare. Supporters still talk about that night as though it happened yesterday. It is still the cruellest image from those years. Fine margins, Liverpool were told again and again, decide titles.
This week the Premier League effectively admitted those margins were never run on a level pitch. That is a hard thing to sit with, even now. It changes how an entire era looks back at itself, even if it changes nothing on the pitch.
The 40-Page Verdict Explaining £830m of ‘Sham’ Contracts
The Premier League’s independent commission published its findings this week in a redacted document running to 40 pages. It examined how Manchester City structured sponsorship income worth £830m between 2009 and 2018. The panel’s conclusion was blunt. Those commercial deals were not genuine, arm’s-length agreements. They were arrangements ‘clearly intended to circumvent the Premier League rules’.
The verdict goes further than simple rule-breaking. The Premier League’s own report describes City’s conduct as ‘dishonest’, a word rarely used in football’s regulatory language. That single word carries real weight. City deny wrongdoing, and the case remains subject to appeal, so no punishment has yet been applied.
Supporters are left waiting once again, this time for a legal process rather than a title race. The commission’s reasoning is laid out in full, and Liverpool Echo coverage of the verdict sets it out in detail for anyone wanting the complete picture.
Nine years of commercial deals, one word used to describe them: dishonest. That is the verdict Liverpool supporters keep repeating this week. It is also the word that will frame every conversation about City’s success in that period.
Retrospective Recognition and the Strict Limits of Premier League Rules
Despite the scale of the findings, Liverpool’s practical reward is limited. Officially, Klopp’s side are only due potential retrospective recognition for the 2016 Carabao Cup final, which City won on penalties. Premier League rules don’t allow trophies to be stripped and reawarded years later. Not even for breaches this serious.
That leaves no mechanism to revisit the closest title races of the Klopp era. A handful of points separated the two clubs at the top of the table, year after year. Many supporters feel that gap between wrongdoing and consequence keenly. The frustration for Liverpool is structural, not just emotional. For a club that built an identity on competing fairly, that imbalance stings more than any single result. It was reflected in Klopp’s reaction to the charges verdict back when the case first became public.
The financial fallout is still being argued over away from the pitch. Liverpool are among the clubs involved in the ongoing legal compensation debate that followed the case. That process will likely take years to resolve. No one expects a quick answer.
The Lasting Legacy of Jurgen Klopp’s Epic Title Races
Klopp never got to manage with this verdict on the record. He left Liverpool in the summer of 2024. Some wounds in football rivalries take a long time to fade. Even so, his message to Pep Guardiola after the ruling showed the old rivalry has not gone away. Old rivalries rarely do.
Klopp returned to football duties at the start of 2025, taking up a role as Red Bull’s global head of soccer. He later succeeded Julian Nagelsmann as Germany’s national coach after the World Cup. His career has since moved into international football, far from the Premier League row he left behind.
Our trophy room from the Klopp era already holds a Champions League, a Premier League title and a string of domestic cups. This verdict doesn’t add another prize to that collection. It does confirm something Klopp’s players always suspected. The Man City verdict Liverpool fans waited for proves the contest for those titles was never run on equal terms.
