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Revealed: The players Man City signed using their ‘sham’ £830m payments

Published 12:55 30 Sept 2026 BST

Sammi Minion
Revealed: The players Man City signed using their ‘sham’ £830m payments

Homesport

Man City spent £1.21bn between 2009 and 2018, with £830m found to have been brought into the club via “sham contracts.”

An extensive piece of financial research from The Telegraph's James Ducker, has revealed the incredible list of players Manchester City managed to sign over the decade between 2009 and 2018 - a period in which the club have just been found guilty of artificially inflating their finances via so called "sham contracts" with sponsors.

As detailed in the Telegraph report, and from the Premier League's announcement of the findings from the independent committee that oversaw City's case: "Of the £949.94m City claimed in commercial income from 2009-10 to 2017-18, only £119.25m was legitimate, with the rest coming from the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) which owned the club."

Sharing information via his X account, Ducker shared a list of players, broken down into a starting XI of players signed by City during the period adding up to the £830m figure Man City are reported to have acquired via "sham" deals.

GK: Ederson (£35m from Benfica)

DF: Kyle Walker (£50m from Spurs)

DF:John Stones (£50m from Everton)

DF: Aymeric Laporte (£57m from Athletic Bilbao)

DF: Benjamin Mendy (£52m from Monaco)

MF: Fernandinho (£35m from Shakhtar Donetsk)

MF: Yaya Toure (£25m from Barcelona)

MF: Kevin De Bruyne (£55m from Wolfsburg)

MF: David Silva (£25m from Valencia)

AT: Sergio Aguero (£38m from Atletico Madrid)

AT: Carlos Tevez (£47m, previously on loan at Manchester United)

SUBSTITUTES:  Raheem Sterling (£49m from Liverpool)

Bernardo Silva (£43m from Monaco)

Leroy Sane (£42m from Schalke)

Nicolas Otamendi (£32m from Valencia)

Edin Dzeko (£27m from Wolfsburg)

Gabriel Jesus (£27m from Palmeiras)

James Milner (£26m from Aston Villa)

Emmanuel Adebayor (£25m from Arsenal)

Joleon Lescott (£24m from Everton)

Samir Nasri (£24m from Arsenal)

Ilkay Gundogan (£21.5m from Borussia Dortmund)

Gareth Barry (£12m from Aston Villa)

Fabian Delph (£8.5m from Aston Villa)

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