Sport

Manchester City guilty over Premier League charges after £900m of ‘sham’ contracts

The Guardian Australia (Sport) Will Unwin

30 Sept 2026 02:05 AEST Summary

Manchester City Premier League Football Sport Finances

Changed after publishing · 1 edit

30 Sept 2026 03:16 AEST the headline was changed: Manchester City ~~found~~ guilty ~~on all~~ over Premier League charges ~~over rule breaches~~after £900m of ‘sham’ contracts

Outlets edit stories after they go out, usually without saying so. We keep what we saw the first time.

From the report

Manchester City have been found guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules over a nine-season period, the league has announced.

How outlets headlined it

Each outlet's own headline. ~~Struck through~~: the loaded words our version leaves out. Plainest first.

The Guardian Australia (Sport) Manchester City guilty over Premier League charges after £900m of ‘sham’ contracts plain
The West Australian Man City guilty of 'sham' deals in A$1.7 bn breach plain

Headline check

All three things this headline claims are in the report.

Figures, names and quoted words in the headline, looked for in the report itself — not in the summary above. How this is checked

This is a summary. The indicators are not. Every score on this page was measured over the full 351-word report, which is the only way the numbers mean anything.

How it is written

Niral Score 4.7 · calm mundaneloaded

10 more readings adjectives, repeated words, sentiment, sourcing and 1 more and 5 at zero

Highlighted in the text. Words that carry a fact and quoted words are not counted.

club6commission5found5guilty4period4charges3rules3breaches2case2contracts2decision2facts2financial2independent2inflate2nine-season2revenues2true2

Sentiment -0.2 hostilefavourable Sourcing 81 unattributednamed sources Mood 51.3 sorrowjoyful

5 read zero: political diction, generational, gender, jingoistic, religious

Political diction 0 left-codedright-coded Generational 0 harder on the oldharder on the young Gender 0 no gendered framingframing throughout Jingoistic 0 reports to a readerwrites from a camp Religious 0 not invokedovert

How the article is written, not whether it is correct. How each is measured.

Measured on The Guardian Australia (Sport)’s report as filed, which is all we may publish of this one.

How this outlet filed it, and how we rewrote it

No other newsroom we read has filed on this event, so there is nothing to compare it with yet.

Also covered by The West Australian. We hold only their summary of it, not the report, so there is nothing of theirs to measure here.

Outlet	Niral Score
The Guardian Australia (Sport)as they published this story	4.7

How did this read?

Comments

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The same event elsewhere

1 other outlet filed this story. The scoreboard above is what they did differently.

The West Australian Man City guilty of 'sham' deals in A$1.7 bn breach Niral 4.2 · calm political 0