This week, Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber said the league had no plans to investigate the owners of New York City FC as a result of the ongoing Manchester City FC scandal.
That scandal involves 115 charges brought by the English Premier League against Man City over breaches of the league's financial rules, with Man City recently found guilty on all counts in the eyes of the Premier League.
Man City and New York City share owners, as you're likely well aware. That would be City Football Group, which holds a controlling 80% stake in NYCFC and in the forthcoming Etihad Park stadium in Queens, one of eight teams — along with Man City — that are under control of CFG as part of its multi-club ownership setup, with CFG also holding minority ownership stakes in four other teams, making it a 12-team multi-club empire.
Don Garber, in his statements made at a Front Office Sports forum, tried to draw a clear line between MLS's business with CFG, and CFG's business in England and elsewhere, especially in the face of the huge scandal engulfing Manchester City following the Premier League's guilty verdict.
"We're not in the business of looking what our team owners do in other leagues. And frankly, I don’t think any league would view what other owners do when they have multiple investments throughout other sports," is how Garber answered when asked about the possibility of MLS holding its own investigation into City Football Group in light of the Man City verdict. "The concept of multiple team ownership is something that we all live through, manage through, and we have our own governance as it relates to what their behavior is," Garber continued, with all these comments, again, coming at a Front Office Sports event held earlier this week.
Garber wasn't content to just dismiss a connection between the Man City scandal and City's sister club operating here in the United States, also choosing to praise the positive impact the Abu Dhabi dollars spent in America have had on the growth of soccer. "I will say that what NYCFC has done through their own ownership, the City Football Group and investing in our league, building a great team in NYCFC, building an MLS Next Pro stadium in New Jersey [Editor's Note: $200M in public financing from NJ taxpayers and Covid-19 relief funding paid for that Next Pro stadium] and obviously their stadium that will open up in Queens is something we're thankful for and appreciative of," Garber said.
Garber's stance is that City Football Group has been a model ownership group inside the MLS sphere, and the American league feels no need to get involved in matters that involve one of its ownership groups but don't involve MLS or soccer here in the United States.
John Baney
One of the problems Garber faces in taking that approach is that it's not possible to fully separate MLS from the Man City scandal because some key figures implicated in Man City's case still play significant roles inside Major League Soccer, with the clearest cross-continent connection made by City Football Group CEO Ferran Soriano.
Soriano is one of the main faces of Man City's resistance to the Premier League charges, adamant about the club’s innocence and pledging to fight the ruling to the bitter end, quoted as saying, "The whole Premier League case against us is based on a single false accusation – that the owner's personal money was somehow and secretly put into the club via some sponsors from Abu Dhabi. This is just not true. Irrefutable evidence has been provided to the Premier League commission that shows it could not happen and that it did not happen."
He became something of a viral poster boy for the Man City side when confronted by Sky Sports reporter Rob Harris almost immediately after news of the guilty verdict broke, with Harris asking Soriano, "Do you apologize to football fans? The Premier League says 'sham' contracts, is this a 'sham' club?," and with Soriano offering no reply.
Asked Man City CEO Ferran Soriano about the PL verdict confirming their guilt pic.twitter.com/wTRdasRmih
— Rob Harris (@RobHarris) September 29, 2026
Soriano has his hands full on the Man City side, but the Spanish soccer executive is also a hugely influential figure inside MLS, which makes Garber's attempts to distance MLS from the Man City scandal ring a bit hollow.
The City Football Group CEO is someone who, at least as of 2024, served on the MLS "sporting and competition committee," a group of league executives responsible for deciding on major changes to MLS and how it operates, involved in votes on changes to the league's financial rules and "product strategy" pertaining to things like the flip to the European calendar and, before that, the introduction of Targeted Allocation Money.
Paul Tenorio of The Athletic took a detailed look at how that committee operates in late 2023 not long after Lionel Messi arrived in MLS, and Soriano was one of the key figures discussed.
In that piece from The Athletic, Soriano was referred to as part of the cohort of "aggressive-minded owners/clubs," and Tenorio wrote that, "MLS owners see Soriano (NYCFC) and [Red Bull managing director Oliver] Mintzlaff (RBNY) as voices that bring a real understanding of the global soccer market," which is undeniable, since Soriano's day job involves oversight of all of the City Football Group clubs.
According to a different, more recent must-read feature on Soriano from The Athletic's Daniel Taylor, Soriano was also mentioned as a legitimate candidate to replace Garber as MLS Commissioner, before that role was given to LAFC co-owner Larry Berg, who served with Soriano on that same MLS sporting and competition committee.
Soriano was instrumental, as part of CFG's upper hierarchy, in bringing NYCFC to life in 2013, and his influence in MLS has only grown since, to the point where he was considered, however seriously, to become the commissioner of the league. That's a hugely significant figure inside MLS, who also happens to be at the very center of the gigantic Manchester City FC scandal.
The caveat, though, is that there's still no clarity on what punishment Man City will actually face, and if Soriano or any other individual executives will be directly punished as part of the guilty verdict. The club lodged an official appeal of the Premier League's verdict, and a final ruling is now expected by early 2027, according to a report from The Times of London's Martyn Ziegler.
Lots of different possible penalties for Man City and its owners have been mentioned, though there's zero clarity on what form punishment might actually take. In that report from The Times, it's mentioned that England's Independent Football Regulator "...will determine whether any individuals at City should be barred from being an owner or director of the club. It could even oblige owner Sheikh Mansour to sell the club under its rules."
One director at Man City who could fall under that punishment: Ferran Soriano, who was appointed CEO of Manchester City FC in 2012, meaning he held the role during the meat of the period in which Man City is accused of breaking the Premier League's financial rules using "sham payments" to artificially inflate revenue and hide costs by more than £830 million ($1.1 billion).
Soriano is the figure with the clearest connection between NYCFC, MLS, and the 115 charges against Manchester City, and if he faces individual punishment in England, that could open up an entirely new can of worms for MLS and its owners. How would the league handle one of its influential long-serving leaders becoming persona non grata in the English Premier League? It's hypothetical at this point, but it's an uncomfortable possibility, especially given his stature in MLS.
Garber's statements this week have MLS in the position of waving away connections between NYCFC and the scandal, choosing to view them more as the cost of doing business with CFG's fantastically deep-pocketed and expansionist founders from Abu Dhabi, which is easy for Garber and MLS to do right at this moment. The saga is still unfolding and unresolved, and it's still unclear what the domino effects will be for Man City, City Football Group, and everyone else in their orbit.
MLS can claim separation from the scandal, and say it won't be investigating NYCFC in light of it, but that doesn't mean the story is over. If the Premier League comes down hard on Soriano, or on any other figures who worked at Man City and then came to NYCFC or MLS (like, say, current NYCFC chief financial officer Andrew Widdowson), that also means an influential MLS executive is facing punishment that would draw global headlines and bring fresh scrutiny to MLS.
While it's possible to wave away connections to the situation for now, the story is far from over, and it's still unclear and impossible to know exactly what its ripple effects will be, and how the boardroom levels of MLS's hierarchy might be impacted.
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