The recent preliminary ruling against Manchester City, declaring the club manipulated its finances through "phantom" contracts and sponsorship deals, marks a significant moment in a long and arduous investigation. This verdict, delivered on 29/9 after a 12-week tribunal by an independent three-member commission, exposes what is arguably the largest sports scandal in UK history. If the club is ultimately found guilty, following inevitable appeals and potential High Court proceedings, it could face severe penalties, including points deductions, relegation, and fines amounting to tens or hundreds of millions of pounds. Despite the overwhelming evidence, Manchester City continues to maintain its innocence.

This ruling is the culmination of years of relentless investigative journalism by individuals like Nick Harris, a reporter for The Mail on Sunday, who has faced immense personal and professional challenges while pursuing the truth about Manchester City's financial affairs.

Journalist Nick Harris with his late wife Helen Harris (right), before 2020. *Photo: Nick Harris

*This story is recounted by Nick Harris in The Mail on Sunday and on his personal Substack page.

The year was 2020. I sat on a plastic chair by a window outside a ground-floor palliative care room, in a hospice locked down during the first wave of the Covid pandemic. Behind the glass was Helen, my wife, who had just turned 47. She lay paralyzed in bed with late-stage brain cancer, yet remained resilient and optimistic. My phone rang. The screen showed a call from a senior editor at Associated Newspapers, where I worked for The Mail on Sunday as a sports investigative reporter, specializing in exposing Manchester City's financial issues, among other cases.

I answered the call. "Hello Nick," he said. "Are you aware that a Manchester City fan just posted your home address on Twitter, along with threats?". "No, I haven't seen it," I replied. "I'm visiting Helen." He added, "We believe we need to help you get that post removed immediately. This is our responsibility to protect our staff. And perhaps you should report this incident to the police." He also mentioned that a senior leader within the media group had already contacted Twitter's liaison department directly (before Elon Musk acquired and rebranded the platform as X).

I had endured six years of relentless attacks and insults from the Manchester City fan community every time one of my articles, highlighting the club's financial irregularities, was published. However, publicly sharing my home address and inciting fans to attack me was a dangerous escalation. Within hours, Twitter assigned me a dedicated "safety officer" with the authority to suspend any account that issued threats against me within minutes of a post appearing. She supported me for months, as the perpetrator's account would be locked, then a new one created minutes later, only to be locked again—an endless cycle.

The front page of The Mail on Sunday on 2/5/2021 featuring Nick Harris's article. Nick Harris and The Mail on Sunday sent documents to Manchester City and the Premier League, demanding access to details of Judge Moulder's ruling to expose the extent to which the club had deliberately obstructed and avoided providing information to the league. *Photo: The Mail on Sunday

Did this incident affect me? Of course. At a tragic point in my life, with my wife dying and two teenage daughters to worry about, my professional work inadvertently put my family in danger. I didn't even dare share this with my children; they had already suffered enough. When Helen passed away in December 2020, I felt a bitter "relief." At least the most extreme elements among Manchester City's fans would no longer have the opportunity to torment me with her illness.

By the summer of 2021, my investigations into Manchester City revealed they were embroiled in a toxic legal battle with the Premier League over the club's alleged fraudulent activities, with both sides seeking to silence the press through legal undertakings. The Mail on Sunday hired a King's Counsel to represent me, arguing for the principle of "open justice," asserting that as a free press, we had the right to inform the public about the fundamental details of the legal impasse between Manchester City and the Premier League. We won the case, and my investigative report was featured on the front page of the newspaper's sports section.

Throughout this process, and in all my investigations into Manchester City's finances, the club consistently resorted to aggressive tactics. Their methods ranged from ignoring requests for comment, accusing me of "bias or personal motives," to threatening lawsuits and psychological intimidation.

The front page of The Mail on Sunday on 25/7/2021 featuring Nick Harris's article. The Mail on Sunday's months-long battle with the Premier League and Manchester City to uphold the principle of "open justice" was victorious in late July. At the same time, hacker Rui Pinto confirmed his readiness to assist the Premier League in any investigation into Manchester City's alleged wrongdoings. *Photo: The Mail on Sunday

In 2023, when tasked with covering multi-club ownership (MCO) with a focus on English football, I delved into City Football Group's policy of hoarding young players worldwide. City Football Group, with Manchester City as its flagship club, is the world's largest MCO. These players rarely feature for the main club and are often sold to related entities within the CFG network. This meticulous research involved weeks of work, including interviews with dozens of player agents, club executives, and officials from various football federations, as well as reviewing reports from club websites and local media (in multiple languages).

I had strong grounds to argue that Manchester City was "exploiting the system" to circumvent new FIFA regulations prohibiting player hoarding. Before publishing, I emailed Simon Heggie, Manchester City's Communications Director, but received no reply. Instead, I received a legal letter. The Mail on Sunday's lawyers deemed this letter superficial, illogical, and threatening, primarily intended to pressure the newspaper not to publish my article. Nevertheless, the article was published.

Manchester City's legal team responded with another legal letter, which essentially confirmed that many details in my article were accurate, even though they continued to claim it was false. I wrote a memo to the newspaper's lawyers outlining my perspective. They advised me that we should amend the online article to reflect the actual and accurate transfer figures, which were very close to the numbers Manchester City claimed were correct. I told the lawyers that Manchester City was notoriously stubborn and would never want us to do that. And indeed, Manchester City issued a statement forbidding us from publishing the "corrections" they had sent. The story ended there. My article remained on the website unedited and unchanged from its original version.

Nick Harris's article in The Mail on Sunday on 25/7/2021. Details in the "smoking-gun" emails published in The Mail on Sunday exposed significant discrepancies between the amounts sponsors claimed to pay Manchester City and the actual amounts they were required to pay. *Photo: The Mail on Sunday

If you are a passionate football fan and follow any reputable football journalist or investigative reporter who has covered Manchester City on social media, ask them about their personal experiences working with the club. I once had a very good relationship with Manchester City, dating back to when Kevin Keegan was manager at the old Maine Road ground. I have friends who are Manchester City fans, and we can debate civilly despite disagreeing on the club's financial matters.

I also have friends who used to work for Manchester City, and some who still do. Years ago, I was even invited as a personal guest of Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak to the Etihad VIP box for a match against Norwich. However, after 2014, when Manchester City's questionable practices became evident through their first penalty, my relationship with some key personnel at the club fractured, then completely broke down. I deeply regret this, but I also felt a duty to write what I could prove.

Even today, in early October 2026, Nick Harris still receives messages or social media comments from those who oppose his articles related to Manchester City. *Photo: X/Nick Harris

As for Manchester City fans, just hours after my article hit the front page, messages and posts (though few, they were highly toxic) appeared on the largest Manchester City fan forums and social media, stating that Helen's death was "just punishment" for me for digging into Manchester City. How does that impact a person psychologically? I am not a psychologist, and generally, I think I have coped relatively well since Helen's passing. But it is certainly true that the consequences were not good.

It has been over five years since a High Court judge allowed The Mail on Sunday to report on the dispute between Manchester City and the Premier League, and noted in 2021 that the process of adjudicating whether Manchester City had committed fraud had been unduly prolonged. We have also passed over three and a half years since the Premier League brought over 115 charges against Manchester City, and two years since the 12-week tribunal where the independent three-member commission heard all evidence from both sides. Finally, a devastating preliminary ruling was announced on September 29, declaring that Manchester City had falsified its finances through "phantom" contracts, "phantom" agreements with players, coaches, and "phantom" commercial sponsorship deals. This ruling exposes industrial-scale fraud, likely the biggest sports scandal in UK history. Yet, Manchester City continues to claim innocence.

Recently, many Manchester City fans have finally been forced to confront the harsh reality that the club's leadership almost certainly orchestrated a large-scale fraud for over a decade. But others remain stuck in the mindset that the battle is not over, much like Hiroo Onoda, who refused to believe World War Two had ended. You may know who he is, even if you haven't heard his name. He was the Japanese soldier who never believed World War Two had ended and hid in the Philippine jungle for 29 years after the war, until 1974, convinced that the events of 1945 were a hoax.

Many Manchester City fans – certainly a minority, but a significant one – still harbor this "Onoda" mentality. They believe their club is completely innocent and that the battle with football authorities will ultimately end in their victory. My personal view is that these fans' thinking has been influenced by the club's upper echelons, by a plutocratic institution where all power derives from money, with Sheikh Mansour as the key link and all his subordinates as crucial elements.

What bothers me most is that this plutocratic mindset makes them believe they can do whatever they want, simply because they are rich enough. They can wage wars. They can invest their 330 billion USD national wealth fund in cities and countries worldwide to seize political power. They can bend the rules, cheat football regulations, and expect to get away with it unscathed.

Talking about personal vindication for me or the small group of journalists who persistently pursued the Manchester City case, not out of bias but to find the truth, is essentially unimportant. I don't need that vindication. What I want is for readers and audiences, in an increasingly polarized and deeply divided world, to still have the right to believe that dedicated and objective journalists exist. These are individuals willing to go to the very limits to report fairly, without fear or favor.

As for the dwindling number of Manchester City fans who still cling to the propaganda that their club did nothing wrong? They are clinging to the last remnants of Manchester City's reputation, just as Leonardo DiCaprio's character clung to the floating piece of wood with Kate Winslet at the end of the movie Titanic. And we all know what happened to Leo's character.