David Bernstein’s £440m Man City criticism points to a much bigger problem

Former City chairman David Bernstein has questioned how his old club can spend £440million while the 115 Premier League charges remain unresolved. It’s a fair question. But there’s another one: how on earth are we still waiting for an answer?

City were charged by the Premier League in February 2023 over alleged financial breaches between 2009 and 2018. They have always denied the allegations.

The hearing finished in December 2024. There is still no verdict.

Writing in The Sunday Times, Bernstein described City’s summer spending as “extraordinary” against that backdrop and said the situation makes a “mockery” of Premier League regulation.

City can’t put themselves on trial

The £440m figure is enormous, although City also brought in around £315m from sales according to the same calculation.

But the spending and the charges are two different things.

City haven’t been found guilty and can hardly be expected to impose their own transfer restrictions while an independent commission considers a case they have always contested. The wait is becoming ridiculous, though.

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters admitted last month that the verdict has taken longer than expected, while insisting the commission must be given the time and space to do its job.

Bernstein has questioned whether pursuing all 115 alleged breaches was sensible, suggesting a smaller number of the bigger issues could have been used as test cases. Whether that would have produced a quicker answer is impossible to know.

What we do know is that City have now completed another enormous summer rebuild, started another season and are heading into another Champions League campaign with the same unresolved case hanging around.

Bernstein wrote that “justice delayed is justice denied”. Three-and-a-half years after the charges were announced, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to argue with that bit.

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