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Hello! Today, we’re asking how close Manchester City really are to Abu Dhabi’s ruling elite. Oh, and who is Jaber Mohamed?
Plus: Andoni Iraola emerges as Tottenham’s top target to replace Ange Postecoglou, Dani Alves has been acquitted of sexual assault, and the Premier League is launching a new transfer window.
Revealing City’s £30m Man
Unravelling Manchester City’s tangled structure
Manchester City and Abu Dhabi are intertwined. The club’s majority owner since 2008 is the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUB). The chairman of ADUB is Sheikh Mansour, a senior politician in the Gulf state. He also happens to be the brother of Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ), Abu Dhabi’s ruling figure.
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City, however, consistently deny being state-owned or state-controlled, the implication being that Abu Dhabi’s political hierarchy exerts no influence over the running of the Premier League side. But an investigation by The Athletic’s Jacob Whitehead suggests the relationship might be closer than some would like us to think.
Who is Jaber Mohamed?
Jacob’s digging uncovered how a man involved in facilitating £30million ($39m) of sponsorship payments to City was a senior aide of MBZ, named in legal documents as Jaber Mohamed. The papers — which The Athletic has seen and authenticated, along with The Times and a YouTube documentary team — comprise a judgment against City by UEFA’s ‘club financial control board’ (CFCB) in 2020. A redacted version previously identified Jaber Mohamed only as “Person X”.
The Athletic can reveal that, at the time, he was general director of the Crown Prince’s Court, a government body in Abu Dhabi. The state’s crown prince in that period was MBZ. We now know this previously unknown Person X was an integral member of the ruling regime.
The CFCB looked into claims that City had broken UEFA’s financial rules, and paid attention to a sponsorship arrangement involving Etisalat, a state-owned UAE telecommunications firm. The board found that £30m purportedly given to City by Etisalat was actually paid by Jaber Mohamed.
Its findings stated: “The Adjudicatory Chamber is comfortably satisfied that the management of the club was well aware that the payments totalling £30m made by Jaber Mohamed were made as equity funding, not as payments for the sponsor on account of genuine sponsorship liabilities.”
City, who denied wrongdoing, were found guilty of disguising equity injections — money put into a club by its owner, which UEFA limits — as sponsor funds, although the verdict was overturned on appeal after the Etisalat allegations were ruled to be time-barred. Rather than declaring City not guilty, the Court of Arbitration for Sport accepted that a five-year prosecution limit had elapsed.
But the Etisalat deal remains part of the Premier League’s ongoing probe into City’s activities.
Why does this matter?
Pep Guardiola’s side are still awaiting their fate, but City deny any wrongdoing (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
The structure at City and their links to Abu Dhabi are important topics because of the club’s ongoing battle with the Premier League.
The revelations about Jaber Mohammed raise uncomfortable questions about how close the relationship is between the club and the UAE.
State ownership or control of a team — denied by City — is not outlawed in the UK, although the government’s proposed football regulator might change that. For now, it’s all about whether those in charge of clubs can satisfy the sport’s Owners’ and Directors’ Test, which could be an issue for a country facing accusations of human rights abuses.
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After a four-year investigation, the governing body brought more than 100 charges against City, accusing them of different financial breaches, including falsely increasing revenue by inflating sponsorship agreements with associated parties to get around financial fair play (FFP) rules. City strongly deny the offences. A hearing concluded in December and an outcome is imminent.
None of those involved have commented on Jacob’s revelations. City did not respond to multiple requests.
It leaves key points unanswered — including the matter of how much separation there is between the club and Abu Dhabi’s corridors of power.
News Round-Up 🗞️
- Breaking in the past hour: former Brazil and Barcelona defender Dani Alves was sentenced in February 2024 to four and a half years in prison for sexual assault. This morning, that verdict was overturned by an appeals court in Spain. A panel ruling that his conviction contained “inaccuracies”.
- The Premier League has created a new, and very brief, transfer window. It opens on June 1 and shuts again on June 10, four days before the Club World Cup starts. It should allow participants Manchester City and Chelsea to get their ducks in a row.
- Not to be outdone by Arsenal, Chelsea Women mounted their own 3-0 comeback to knock Manchester City out of the Champions League and power into the semi-finals. Charlotte Harpur thinks this might be their year at last — but they’re now paired with Barcelona, who destroyed Wolfsburg 10-2 on aggregate.
Antonio Rudiger (left) and Kylian Mbappe (third from left) celebrate after Real Madrid’s penalty shootout win against Atletico Madrid (Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images)
Spurs Eyeing Iraola
Andoni Iraola is impressing at Bournemouth (Sebastian Frej/Getty Images)
Bournemouth head coach could replace troubled Postecoglou
Everything is working — and appreciating in value — at Bournemouth. We have a great interview with left-back Milos Kerkez today, a 21-year-old whose form is saying, ‘Buy, buy, buy’ (and Liverpool might).
There’s no bigger asset there, though, than head coach Andoni Iraola — and lo and behold, The Athletic’s Tottenham Hotspur boys have broken cover by revealing that Iraola is top of the list of targets at Spurs if they decide to wave goodbye to Ange Postecoglou.
The uninitiated might be surprised to find a club working on a future appointment while an incumbent is in post, but this is how it goes. Football is ruthless and Iraola has been immense at Bournemouth. A club who were on minus 17 points at the bottom of English football’s professional pyramid 17 years ago are in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup and throwing darts for a Champions League place. It’s a Premier League marvel.
That Tottenham want a piece of the magic shouldn’t surprise anybody. The graphic above neatly demonstrates how Iraola’s tactics and coaching are making a more positive impact than Postecoglou’s.
Confirmation of Spurs’ interest tells us three things: one, that the inevitable scramble for Iraola’s services is underway; two, that Postecoglou is in trouble (two other Premier League names are also in the frame for his job); and three, that Bournemouth should savour every moment of Iraola, because all good things come to an end.
Around The Athletic FC 🔄
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The stats tempted fate somewhat because Chris Wood has returned from international duty with a hip problem, but the point stands: Nottingham Forest’s fitness record is superb, with only 11 injuries leading to a player missing a Premier League match this season. Whatever they’ve got, bottle it and sell it.
- RB Leipzig have been a rising power in German and European football for ages, so it took me by surprise to learn how weak their academy system is. They simply don’t produce their own talent. Seb Stafford-Bloor explains how they’re trying to right that wrong.
- “When women’s breasts move, the vertical acceleration can lead to a g-force equivalent of what Red Bull driver Max Verstappen experiences in a grand prix.” That sentence alone tells you that Megan Feringa’s deep dive into the history and mechanics of the sports bra is not to be missed.
- Quiz question: with another FA Cup weekend looming, and four clubs vying to win it for the first time — which was the last FA Cup final to feature two clubs who had never lifted it before? The answers will be on The Athletic later today and in Monday’s newsletter.
- Most clicked in yesterday’s TAFC: USMNT legends unloading on the current squad.
Catch A Match 📺
(Selected games, kick-offs ET/UK time)
Friday
Championship: Sheffield United vs Coventry City, 3pm/8pm — CBS, Paramount+, Amazon Prime/Sky Sports, ITV4.
Saturday
FA Cup quarter-finals: Fulham vs Crystal Palace, 8.15am/12.15pm — ESPN+/ITV1; Brighton vs Nottingham Forest, 1.15pm/5.15pm — ESPN+/BBC One.
La Liga: Real Madrid vs Leganes, 4pm/8pm — ESPN+, Fubo/Premier Sports.
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MLS: Inter Miami vs Philadelphia Union, 7.30pm/11.30pm — MLS Season Pass/Apple TV.
Sunday
FA Cup quarter-finals: Preston North End vs Aston Villa, 8.30am/1.30pm — ESPN+/BBC One; Bournemouth vs Manchester City, 11.30am/4.30pm — ESPN+/ITV.
La Liga: Barcelona vs Girona, 10.15am/3.15pm — ESPN+, Fubo/Premier Sports.
Serie A: Napoli vs Milan, 2.45pm/7.45pm — Paramount+, Fubo/TNT Sports, OneFootball.
And Finally…
No Raphinha, no problem. Barcelona had no need to worry over their (legitimate) complaints about contesting a rearranged game in La Liga against Osasuna without him or Ronald Araujo, who had played for their international teams less than 48 hours before.
True, Dani Olmo picked up a groin injury after scoring a retaken penalty, but their 3-0 win last night (nudging them three points clear of Real Madrid) could have been sealed with their eyes closed — so low-stress, in fact, that goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny had fun sending Osasuna’s attack for hot dogs (timestamped in the YouTube link above for your convenience).
(Top photo: Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images)
