Hull City chairman sharply criticized Manchester City after they were found guilty of breaching Premier League financial rules.
On 30 Sep 2026 GMT+7, Akhun Ilijali, owner and chairman of The Tigers, Hull City—newcomers to the English Premier League—strongly condemned Manchester City after they were found guilty of 114 financial breaches of Premier League regulations.
Akhun Ilijali became the first club executive to speak out on the controversial matter. He said, “I won’t judge whether they are truly guilty because they claim innocence, while the Premier League says they are not innocent. But if they are guilty and violations did occur, I believe it’s no different from doping in the Olympics.”
“Ultimately, this is financial doping—spending huge sums to bring in 4-5 top players by breaking the rules. From that perspective, it looks very bad. If they receive only minor penalties, all teams might follow suit. For football’s clean future, if this really happened, there should be serious punishments to prevent anyone from doing this again.”