Man City Women insist 'business as usual' after Premier League guilty verdicts
Manchester City Women manager Andree Jeglertz said it was "business as usual" and declined to say whether he had received assurances the women's side would be unaffected after Manchester City was found guilty of Premier League financial breaches, speaking at a press conference ahead of their Women's Champions League fixture on 30 September 2026. When pressed on the issue he added: "I don't want to comment more around that."
Jeglertz, who joined City last summer and won the WSL title with Manchester City in his first season, answered seven questions on the charges before the club's press officer asked the media to move away. The Premier League has found City guilty of all charges relating to breaches of its financial rules between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons, saying the club arranged "sham contracts" with a number of commercial partners as part of a scheme to disguise secret funding of more than £830m. City deny any wrongdoing and have until 2 October to submit an appeal. The charges relate to Premier League regulations, which differ from the financial rules that applied to the WSL when the women's league was under the governance of the Football Association.
The women's team were the first representatives of the club to speak to the media since the Premier League confirmed the guilty charges. BBC Sport understands there is no active investigation by WSL Football. There has been no suggestion in the reporting that any WSL opponents have raised concerns about Manchester City's charges or that opponents believe it has aided City's progress.
Defender Jade Rose said the players had received "the same messaging the public has" from the club and, when asked whether the charges raised concerns for the squad, added: "I'm just here to talk about the football. That's what we're focusing on." The team held an open training session earlier on Wednesday morning with no apparent changes to routines, and Therese Sjogran, director of women's football at Manchester City, was present. A few more media attended Jeglertz and Rose's press conference, which was called to preview the Women's Champions League match.
Jeglertz replied to a social media statement of support from Pep Guardiola by saying: "Definitely. I am working at the club now so that's who I am hired by and working with, so, for sure." On whether the surrounding coverage had made preparation more difficult he said: "I don't think so. We have been training like normal and doing the work we can do to affect the game. We haven't changed anything, we have just kept on doing everything we normally do. Definitely the thing the club has been presented, is the information we have inside of our group. "We can't talk about anything else and we don't need to talk about anything else at the moment." He also said he was not frustrated by the negative media attention despite City's strong start to their WSL campaign.
City, the defending WSL champions, have 12 points from their opening four matches and sit top of the table.
They face Real Madrid on Thursday in their second Women's Champions League league phase match at 20:00 BST, having drawn their opening game against Bayern Munich last week.
