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](https://observer.co.uk/news/sport/article/manchester-city-appeal-what-happens-next) 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](https://observer.co.uk/news/sport/article/a-week-is-a-long-time-in-football).
Photograph by James Gill/Danehouse/Getty Images