How Manchester City chaos could impact Sheffield Wednesday's future Pierce Charles windfall

There are scenarios in which the furore over Manchester City’s legal case could in theory have an impact on the financial obligations they have to Sheffield Wednesday - though the likelihood of them coming into play are completely speculative for the time being.

That’s the steer of football finance expert Kieran Maguire, who has been well across what is being billed as the most significant story in the history of the Premier League since a long-awaited verdict on 115 disciplinary charges - brought to the club by the league as far back as February 2023 - was confirmed this week.

An independent commission found City guilty of all financial-rule charges covering 2009–18 and the majority of non-cooperation charges from 2018–23. The Premier League confirmed this earlier this week after earlier reports of a 114–1 verdict. The independent panel ruled City used ‘sham’ contracts to disguise owner funding, inflating revenues and cutting costs by more than £830–900 million - while breaching spending limits and filing misleading accounts.

No punishment has been set. A separate sanctions hearing is still required; possible outcomes range from fines and points deductions to expulsion. City vehemently deny wrongdoing, call the findings flawed, and have made clear their intention to appeal ahead of the October 2 deadline. The full process, including any appeal, is expected to last many more months.

City signed goalkeeper Charles in July in a deal understood to be bolstered with contingent ‘add-on’ fees that could in theory scale somewhere in the region of £10m. The finite make-up of that deal and the wording of the contingents are not known. It is believed the Owls took a more ‘up-front’ transfer fee of around £3m.

Other deals have been done in that direction, with starlet youngsters Caelen-Kole Cadamarteri and Romario Collins having made the switch from Middlewood Road to City in recent years. It is believed there are add-ons in both deals, but again the details of those potential add-ons are confidential.

One speculated outcome of the Manchester City case is that they are relegated to the Championship - either systematically or by virtue of a future points deduction. The possibility of that outcome has prompted some Owls supporters to question whether any future payments would be impacted in that case.

“All add-on fees are determined at the time of contract,” Maguire told The Star. “Now there are consequential add-ons and these might be whether any of these players go on to make their debut with City, make so many appearances, if they are sold by City or what have you. Then Wednesday could in theory be given additional compensation for selling the players’ contract to Manchester City.

“How does relegation for Manchester City impact that? It’s likely to say ‘10 appearances’ for example, rather than ‘10 appearances for Man City in the Premier League’, I’d be amazed if that was the case, but clearly if Manchester City were to be relegated then that part of the contract would not be triggered.”

Should any contingent based upon outright senior appearances be included in those deals, it also stands to reason that the former Wednesday youngsters have perhaps more chance of playing a regular part for City if they do spend time in the second tier.

In a doomsday scenario in which City’s circumstances alter so much funding is altered entirely, City will of course have to fulfil any financial obligations to Wednesday as a ‘football creditor’ - or face stringent football disciplinary measures by governing bodies. It is stressed that there has so far been no suggestion whatsoever that the City Football Group or its backers could draw back on its commitment to the Etihad club.

“If Manchester City fail to fulfil their obligations to Wednesday one could only assume that they are either be in administration or significant financial constraints,” Maguire advised. “Should that happen, Wednesday could report City to the Football Association, to the Premier League for breach of contract - and then sanctions would apply against Manchester City.

“We saw in the case of Sheffield United that they started the 2025/26 season with a points deduction due to the late payment of transfer fee instalments. So it could be that City would be subject to a transfer ban or so on.”

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