Man City player agents left in limbo after summer splurge
Shaun Brooks/ CameraSport/ Getty Images
Buyer’s regret: Elliott Anderson (right) and Enzo Fernández (left)
could find themselves relegated if their new club does not win appeal.
Some of the club’s biggest stars are bound to move if sanctions hit hard, writes Rob Draper
Rob Draper
4 Oct 2026 - THE OBSERVER / Sport
Penny for the thoughts of Elliot Anderson, Enzo Fernández, Ayyoub Bouaddi and Illiman Ndiaye this weekend – or more specifically their agents. Last week, ESPN reported that Manchester City had been informed in July that they had been found guilty of Premier League charges, the same time as they were preparing bids for and finalising deals on a record-breaking transfer window.
Binding yourself to a long-term contract at a club which conceivably could now be relegated if City’s appeal, launched on Thursday, fails, seems like ultimate buyer’s regret. Anderson, who cost £116 million, was a record fee for a British player while Fernández, at £125m, was a joint-Premier League record figure. It’s unclear exactly what was said to those players signing for City this summer as the club declined to comment on the reports. But splashing out £458m in deals – even if they recouped around £277m in sales – was an astonishing bet on the club’s future and their innocence if City did know what was coming.
However, an agent who has dealt with City extensively in the past and who raised the issue of the 115 charges with them gives an indication of how confident they have been. “They told us: ‘It’s going to get sorted.’ They said they had done nothing wrong. They were absolutely convinced they had done no wrong.” The agent in question remained sceptical but expediently anticipated some kind of plea-bargain compromise with the Premier League. And the player wished to sign for City – as most would – so eventually the deal was done.
For now most City players will be placing their faith in the bullish response of Manchester City and assuming the judgment will be overturned by City’s lawyers, just as a UEFA ban was at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in 2020.
However, agents will be aware that Cas ruled in favour of City partly because the most serious evidence of wrongdoing was time-barred but principally because Uefa proceeded without securing the evidence. City refused to disclose their internal emails and Uefa gave up trying to make them.
The Premier League, on the other hand, has no time bar for offences – hence they go back to 2009 – and also fought and won a lengthy and expensive arbitration case with City to force the club to disclose all the documents. In short, this judgment is much more serious for the club, harder to overturn and is causing concern among agents with players at City.
“They [agents] will be looking at whether they will get their commissions paid in full,” said one agent. “You get paid commission season by season, over the length of the contract. And I imagine you would be thinking: ‘I’ve had my first £500,000, but am I getting any more out of this [if City are relegated]? So where do I get him to a club that’s going to get us the same money and he’ll be happy?’ There are not many clubs of the same size out there. Players like Antoine Semenyo, Erling Haaland, Phil Foden, Anderson [and] Fernández will find other clubs to pay them their wages, particularly if they’re going cheap. But there are others on £150,000 a week who will struggle and be stuck at City.”
The appeal is now in process, although sanctions could be announced before that is completed. However, sanctions may not apply until the appeal has concluded and then could be further delayed by City appealing the sanctions themselves. At which point the summer transfer window will be looming, meaning a nerve-racking game of stick or twist for agents and players.
In the worst-case scenario for City, with relegation or multi-year punishments making them uncompetitive, agents will be rushing to prepare escape routes. However, they will be wary of moving too soon, just in case there is an “Agüerooo” moment in the courtroom. If City were to be vindicated or even just mitigate the sanctions, they could remain a financial force rather than the sinking ship they look like right now. And no one wants to get on the wrong side of the money in Premier League football.
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Etihad clash reminder of City Women’s ties to club’s 114 charges
Jessy Parker Humphreys
There was not much to suggest a club under existential threat on Thursday as Manchester City Women became the first City side to play publicly since the Premier League announced that an independent commission had found the club “guilty of all financial charges”. Some fans sang Sheikh Mansour’s name during their 1-1 draw with Real Madrid, but the majority stuck to the more familiar songbook aimed at the women’s team.
The main narrative has been that the charges bear little relation to City’s women’s team, and if anything, the criticism levelled at City over the years has been that their owners have not spent enough money on the women’s side.
City’s arrival in the WSL was controversial. The FA announced one game into the 2013 season that Doncaster Belles would be relegated to the second division for 2014, with the newly revamped City taking their place in the division. The Belles won two league titles and six FA Cups across the 1980s and 1990s, so the decision was deeply disputed. It gave the impression that the FA was cosying up to a bigger club which had not previously invested in the women’s game, just because it had greater financial backing. The fact that the independent commission has now shown that the club was flagrantly breaching Premier League rules during that period makes that decision by the FA look egregious, but it is water long under the bridge.
City did not put much money into the team in 2014 however, and even examining more recent accounts of the women’s team, they fall far behind Chelsea and Arsenal in that regard. Chelsea reported commercial revenue of more than £16 million in 2024-25, while Arsenal reported commercial revenue and group income of £13.5m. City meanwhile were just below £7m.
City Women’s manager Andrée Jeglertz would not comment on whether the women’s team would be affected, but said it was “business as usual”. The players are said to be unfazed by the noise surrounding the men’s half of the club. It is also understood that the WSL will not investigate the women’s team in any way.
It undeniably helps that City have struggled to have sustained domestic success. After first winning the WSL in 2016, they waited a decade to win it again, and although they have won eight further domestic trophies in that time, their success pales into insignificance compared to Chelsea. Anything from the sale of the club to multiple men’s relegations could alter the course of the women’s team, whether in terms of financial backing or club image. Sanctions may put players off joining, but there are very few women’s sides as wealthy as City.
It is also notable that last month City launched a visual rebrand of the women’s team, further emphasising the distinction between them and the men’s side. Where the decision might most impact the women’s game is with the squad-cost regulations being used in the WSL on a formal basis for the first time this season. These limit salary caps to 80% of revenue, with only an allowable top-up of £4m or 25% of the team’s revenue permitted from the ownership, whichever is higher.
One question that the Premier League verdict poses – to all leagues – is how well it is able to audit information that clubs are providing. This is made harder in the women’s game, where commercial contracts might sit across both teams.
City face Arsenal at the Etihad on Sunday in one of their biggest games of the season. The game’s atmosphere may depend on how much Arsenal fans are paying attention to the scandal rather than their own team’s poor form. While there is no direct link between the men’s team’s situation and the women’s team’s existence, when they walk out of the tunnel at a ground covered in the branding of one of those “sham” deals, they may still feel implicated.
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