Khaldoon Al Mubarak: City remain resolute over Premier League charges

• Khaldoon Al Mubarak writes to Manchester City supporters as the club continues to contest 115 Premier League charges.
• The chairman says City’s “confidence and intent in proving the Club’s innocence is just as strong as when this began.”
• His tone echoes past confrontations, from a £30m legal threat over Financial Fair Play to warnings sent to the UK government.

Al Mubarak issues open letter over charges

Manchester City are still contesting 115 charges brought by the Premier League, and the case has now reached a point where the club’s chairman felt the need to address supporters directly.

Khaldoon Al Mubarak’s letter lands as the independent panel continues its deliberations, with no date yet set for a verdict.

He tells fans that City’s “Our confidence and intent in proving the Club’s innocence is just as strong as when this began,” a line chosen to counter any sense that the club’s resolve has softened.

He adds a pointed message for those outside the club: “There remain many who want to undermine the momentum of our club. We will not give them that opportunity.”

The letter, detailed in our full report on Al Mubarak’s open letter, was framed as reassurance.

Read alongside reporting by The Independent, it looks like something sharper – a message built to project strength while the panel’s findings remain unknown.

How it happened: direct stance from Abu Dhabi

Khaldoon Al Mubarak’s language did not arrive from nowhere.

He serves as chairman of the Executive Affairs Authority and chief executive of the Mubadala wealth fund, roles that put him at the centre of Abu Dhabi’s foreign and economic policy, not just its football club.

That background carries weight. His father, Khalifa Ahmad Mubarak, was the UAE’s ambassador to France and was assassinated in 1984.

Al Mubarak grew up inside a state apparatus built to defend its interests without flinching, and that instinct has surfaced before in disputes far removed from football.

In 2015, the Guardian reported that the UAE threatened to block billion-pound arms deals unless David Cameron took a harder line on the Muslim Brotherhood.

Leaked documents from that episode quoted Al Mubarak warning UK officials that “the difficult conversations we’ve been having, will become far more difficult.”

The same directness now shapes his message to City supporters.

The expert angle: a long history of aggressive leverage

Al Mubarak has never treated regulatory pressure as something to absorb quietly.

During a previous UEFA Financial Fair Play dispute, he said the club “would rather spend £30m on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue them for the next ten years,” a line that still defines how City fight, not just what they say.

He has also been candid about what the club represents to Abu Dhabi.

He once told journalist David Conn that “there is almost a personification of the values we hold as Abu Dhabi, with the values of the club.” That framing turns the Premier League case into more than a football dispute. It becomes a test of identity.

City have faced this kind of scrutiny before, including the initial Football Leaks revelations that first exposed internal documents to public view.

Al Mubarak’s pattern across a decade of these moments is consistent: absorb the pressure, then respond with a statement designed to look unshaken.

What happens next

The Premier League’s independent panel has not published a date for its ruling on the 115 charges, and City have given no timetable of their own. Nothing in Al Mubarak’s letter changes that.

Life at the club continues regardless.

The most important people, the supporters, now wait as they have for more than two years for the panel’s findings.

Follow all the latest: Football live: Premier League 2026/27 news, transfers and updates.