Premier League champions Manchester City have been handed a £2 million fine by the Premier League in relation to offences across the last two seasons of the competition
Manchester City have agreed to pay £2million in fines by the Premier League after multiple kick-off and restart breaches.
The reigning Premier League champions won their fourth straight title last season, pipping Arsenal on the final day of the campaign. However, they were found to have kicked off or restarted matches late on some 22 occasions over the last two seasons.
“The Premier League and Manchester City FC have entered into a sanction agreement after the club accepted it had breached Premier League Rule L.33 relating to kick-off and re-start obligations,” a Premier League statement reads. “The breaches relate to a number of Premier League matches during the 2022/23 and 2023/24 seasons.
“Rules relating to kick-offs and re-starts help ensure the organisation of the competition is set at the highest possible professional standard and provides certainty to fans and participating clubs. It also ensures the broadcast of all 380 League matches around the world is kept to schedule.”
In a lengthier document, it is explained that the club has admitted to delaying kick-offs or restarts “without good reason” on 22 occasions. The majority were delays to restarts at the beginning of the second half of matches, but there were several instances where kick-off was delayed.
The longest delay related to kick-off on the final day of last season against West Ham United. After a delay of two minutes and 46 seconds, City claimed a 3-1 victory over the London side to clinch the title.
Eight of the offences relate to the 2022-23 season and 14 in the 2023-24. Only one of those matches, a home meeting with Newcastle United in August 2023, saw both the kick-off and the re-start delayed.
City have agreed to resolve the situation with payments totalling around £2m. This includes six-figure sums for each of the eight breaches identified since the turn of the year, with £200,000 for delaying kick-off in the West Ham game representing the highest punishment.
Pep Guardiola’s team will begin their next title defence against Chelsea on August 18. Before then, they are due to take on Manchester United in the Community Shield at Wembley.
City lost on penalties to Barcelona in their most recent pre-season friendly after a 2-2 draw in Orlando. Youngster Nico O’Reilly was on target for Guardiola’s side, as was £100m man Jack Grealish, but Kalvin Phillips and Jacob Wright failed from the spot in the shoot-out.
“Every game we are getting better – our condition is getting better,” the manager said, despite City failing to win on their US tour. “Rico [Lewis], again, thank you so much, Oscar [Bobb], Nico [O’Reilly]… all.
“Kalvin [Phillips] made an excellent performance today. Josko [Gvardiol] the first minutes, Kova [Mateo Kovacic] the first minutes, so yeah that’s really good.”
