Could Manchester City's Financial Case Affect Manchester City Women?

There is another Manchester City team operating from the same football campus, under the same wider ownership, whose position is less obvious. Manchester City Women are reigning Women's Super League champions, competing in a different league, under a different regulatory structure, through a separate legal company.

Their manager has already been asked whether the men's case could affect them. Andrée Jeglertz said it was "business as usual". Asked whether he had been given assurances that the women's team would not be affected, he declined to comment further.

That leaves a reasonable question. Could they be?

Related reading: The Pyramid has also examined what the Commission's financial findings actually mean and how far Manchester City could fall if the eventual sanction affects their league status. For the women's game every fortnight, subscribe to The Women's Ledger — subscribers can also enter The Pyramid 1st Season Giveaway.

Manchester City Women are a different company

Manchester City Women's Football Club Limited is company number 08570537, incorporated in June 2013.

It is a separate legal company from Manchester City Football Club Limited. The Premier League's published decision and statement concern Manchester City FC — "the club" in the proceedings — rather than Manchester City Women's Football Club Limited.

That distinction is fundamental. The Commission found against Manchester City on the serious financial charges relating to the period between 2009/10 and 2017/18 and on the majority of the cooperation allegations. The sanction will be determined separately, while City dispute the findings and have said they will appeal.

There has been no finding against Manchester City Women's Football Club Limited, nor has any sanction been announced against the women's team. There is therefore no basis for treating a future points deduction imposed on Manchester City in the Premier League as though the same number of points would simply be removed from Manchester City Women in the WSL.

But separate company does not mean separate economic universe.

The connection is City Football Group

Companies House records City Football Group (Midco) Limited as the person with significant control over Manchester City Women's Football Club Limited, controlling at least 75% of the shares and voting rights with the right to appoint or remove directors.

There is also overlap at board level. John MacBeath is a director of Manchester City Women's Football Club Limited, Manchester City Football Club Limited, City Football Group Limited and City Football Group (Midco) Limited. The two football companies therefore sit within the same wider City Football Group structure, rather than operating as unrelated businesses that happen to share a name.

Operationally, the relationship is visible too. The women's company is registered at City Football HQ, the team operates from the City Football Academy, and Manchester City's own annual reporting incorporates the women's operation into its broader sporting and commercial presentation. The group is currently developing a £10m dedicated first-team facility for the women's team at the Academy.

The women's operation has its own company. Its development is nevertheless occurring inside the infrastructure and capital ecosystem of City Football Group.

Follow the shares

The Companies House filings make that financial relationship particularly interesting, because Manchester City Women's Football Club Limited has repeatedly issued new shares.

A statement of capital following an allotment on 27 May 2025 showed issued share capital of £22,520,001. Another allotment followed on 24 July, taking the figure to £23,870,001. A third, on 30 October, increased it to £24,370,001. On 28 January 2026, another allotment took issued capital to £27,820,001, and on 18 April a further issue increased it to £29,920,001.

Across the period from the May 2025 allotment to April 2026, the nominal value of the company's issued share capital therefore increased by £7.4m, from £22.52m to £29.92m.

That figure requires an important distinction. Nominal share capital is not the same thing as the amount of cash invested. The statements of capital establish the number and nominal value of shares issued, but the £7.4m increase should not be treated as £7.4m of cash entering the company without establishing the consideration paid for each allotment, because shares can be issued at nominal value or at a premium. Nor does the increase represent additional revenue: share capital and turnover are entirely different things.

What the filings establish at this stage is a sustained series of equity issues by the women's corporate entity. Establishing the consideration paid for those shares is necessary before quantifying the capital provided through them.

That matters when the operating accounts are placed beside them.

£10.6m of revenue — and a £2.8m loss

Manchester City Women are no longer a small commercial operation. Turnover rose from £6.604m in 2023/24 to £10.615m in 2024/25, an increase of approximately 61%, while wages increased from £6.084m to £7.322m and the average number of employees remained at 60.

Yet despite the revenue growth, the company recorded an operating loss of £3.056m and a pre-tax loss of £2.828m. That was an improvement on the previous year's £3.162m pre-tax loss, but it still means the women's operation was spending more than it generated.

Its balance sheet moved sharply in the opposite direction, with net assets increasing from approximately £2.42m to £7.76m. The sequence of share allotments provides important context for that strengthening.

This is therefore not simply a women's team being casually subsidised inside the men's football company. It is a separately incorporated women's business generating more than £10m of annual turnover, recording its own losses and issuing its own equity — which makes the potential consequences of the men's case both clearer and more complicated.

Could Manchester City Women receive a points deduction?

Nothing currently published establishes that a Premier League sporting sanction against Manchester City would automatically transfer to Manchester City Women. The two teams compete under different competition rules.

The Premier League Commission has broad discretion over the sanction it imposes in the proceedings before it, and the Premier League has identified fines, points deductions and other sporting sanctions among the available possibilities. Those proceedings concern Manchester City. The WSL has its own regulatory framework.

There is, however, an important provision in that framework which shows why the corporate structure cannot simply be ignored. The WSL regulations contain specific insolvency rules: if a women's club itself suffers an insolvency event, a ten-point deduction applies. More unusually, the rules also address what happens if a Group Undertaking of the women's club suffers an insolvency event. In that situation the WSL board has the power to impose a ten-point deduction on the women's club, and in deciding whether to exercise that power it must consider the circumstances, including the relationship between the club and the Group Undertaking.

That is a very different situation from Manchester City's current Premier League proceedings. A fine, points deduction or relegation is not an insolvency event, so the provision does not provide a mechanism through which an ordinary Premier League sporting sanction would cross into the WSL.

But it establishes something important: women's football's own rules recognise circumstances in which an event elsewhere in a club's corporate group can have a sporting consequence for the women's team.

Corporate separation is real. It is not unlimited.

What if Manchester City were relegated?

If the Premier League Commission eventually imposed a sanction resulting in Manchester City's men's team being relegated, that would not by itself relegate Manchester City Women from the WSL. The women's team qualifies for and competes in the WSL under that competition's own rules, and no provision in those rules applies a Premier League sporting sanction automatically to a WSL club.

The more relevant question would be financial.

Premier League status is extraordinarily valuable to the men's business. A major fine, loss of league income, commercial consequences or a prolonged period outside the Premier League could alter the economics of the wider football group. How much of that would ultimately reach the women's operation would depend on the sanction, the outcome of City's appeal, the financial consequences for the wider group and decisions made by its owners.

There is no evidence at present that CFG intends to reduce investment in Manchester City Women. Indeed, the evidence immediately preceding the Commission decision points in the opposite direction: repeated equity issues, rapidly rising women's revenue and a £10m purpose-built facility under development.

That is why it would be wrong to move from "Manchester City have been found in breach" to "Manchester City Women are financially threatened". The available evidence does not establish that. It does, however, establish that the women's operation has been growing with substantial capital support inside the same wider group.

What about a large fine?

The same distinction applies. A fine imposed on the men's club would be a liability of that entity. It would not automatically become a liability of Manchester City Women's Football Club Limited simply because both companies are within City Football Group.

But capital is allocated. Manchester City Women recorded a £2.828m pre-tax loss in their latest financial year while the company continued to issue equity and CFG committed to major infrastructure expenditure.

If the men's proceedings eventually produced a sufficiently large financial cost, the relevant Women's Ledger question would not be whether the women were legally responsible for paying it — they would not be, simply by virtue of common ownership. It would be whether the wider group's allocation of capital changed as a consequence. That is impossible to determine before the sanction itself is known.

Commercial exposure may be more complicated

There is another connection. Manchester City increasingly sells commercial partnerships across its men's and women's operations.

The club's 2024/25 annual report describes a record number of deals focused on the women's team, including a women's-specific partnership with Revolut, while other commercial relationships, including Betway, covered both men's and women's teams. This means the women's commercial operation has both independent and shared characteristics.

Again, there is no basis for assuming sponsors will withdraw from Manchester City Women because of the Commission decision. But if the men's case eventually produces material consequences for group-wide sponsorship arrangements, shared commercial contracts are one potential transmission mechanism to examine. Conversely, the growth of women-specific sponsorship provides some diversification from the men's business — which is part of why the £10.615m turnover figure matters, because it shows City Women are building a meaningful commercial operation of their own.

Why it matters

Manchester City illustrates an increasingly important problem in understanding the finances of women's football: a women's team can be legally separate without being economically independent.

Manchester City Women's Football Club Limited has its own company number, accounts, employees, revenues, losses and share capital. A Premier League sanction against the men's club does not simply become a WSL sanction against that separate company.

Yet the women's business is controlled by City Football Group, shares directors and infrastructure with other group entities, has issued equity repeatedly and is benefiting from a £10m investment at the City Football Academy. That makes two extreme interpretations equally difficult to support. There is currently no evidence that Manchester City Women face the same sporting punishment as the men's team — but describing the women's operation as entirely insulated because it sits in a separate limited company would ignore how the business is actually financed and operated.

The consequences, if there are any, are more likely to travel through capital allocation, infrastructure and commercial relationships than through an automatic transfer of Premier League points deductions. And until the sanction against Manchester City is known, those consequences remain hypothetical.

What to watch

The sanction. Its scale and form will determine whether there is any meaningful financial consequence for the wider group to analyse.

The appeal. Manchester City dispute the Commission's findings and have said they intend to appeal, so the disciplinary process remains ongoing.

Further share allotments. City Women's filings have established a clear pattern of equity issues. Whether that continues at the same pace will be one of the cleanest indicators of CFG's financial commitment to the women's operation.

The £10m training centre. Work on the dedicated women's facility at the City Football Academy provides a tangible test of whether planned investment continues unaffected.

Commercial contracts. Women's-specific sponsorship reduces dependence on shared City arrangements, while group-wide deals provide a potential connection to the economics of the men's business.