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Two Cases, One Mechanism
Follow the money in each case and the paths look different at first. At Manchester City it starts with an owner and ends in the club’s revenue line. At the Clippers it starts with companies doing business with the team and ends in a player’s pocket. The destinations differ. The move in the middle is the same: money is renamed on the way through.
I. Manchester: The Revenue Route
At City, the money began with the owner and ended in the club’s revenue line. The Premier League says the independent commission found that the club arranged “sham” commercial deals with sponsors, and that the sponsors were required to pay only a portion of the stated fees. The remainder, the league says, was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), the club’s owner. The league puts the combined effect on revenue and costs at more than £900m across 2009-10 to 2017-18.
The scale shows in the club’s own filings. Valuball’s breakdown of the decision reports that City’s commercial revenue, as filed, grew from £23.4m in 2008-09 to £232.3m in 2017-18, and that the commission found £830.7m of the commercial income across the period was ADUG’s money. The league also says the arrangements let the club avoid recording the largest single-season loss in Premier League history in 2009-10.
The disguise ran in both directions. The league says the arrangements reduced the club’s costs as well as inflating its income, and the original charges included payments to managers and players that the league said were not accurately reported. The commission found that the club filed misstated accounts, that the accounts did not give a true and fair view in any of the nine seasons, and that the club concealed its true finances from its auditors and football regulators.
II. Los Angeles: The Endorsement Route
At the Clippers, the money began with companies that did business with the team and ended with a player. The NBA’s announcement, based on the Wachtell Lipton investigation, says the team initiated off-court income opportunities between Kawhi Leonard and four companies, Aspiration Partners, Boingo Wireless, Daktronics, and Lockton Insurance, and facilitated endorsement agreements between them. Press coverage of the findings adds that the team was found to have induced companies to enter those agreements by offering them business, and to have paid personal expenses for Leonard and his representatives.
The Aspiration agreement is the best-documented link. ESPN reported that Leonard signed a four-year, $28 million endorsement deal through his own LLC in April 2022, about nine months after he re-signed with the Clippers, and that Ballmer was an investor in Aspiration. The NBA’s findings say Ballmer knowingly sought to help Leonard obtain off-court income and approved a business deal he knew was a precondition for Aspiration’s endorsement agreement. The league fined the team $30 million, took five first-round picks, suspended Ballmer for a year, and fined Leonard $700,000. The Clippers said they reject the findings and will challenge them.
III. What Moved and What Didn’t
Put the two findings in one frame and the shared structure is plain. In neither case did the money change. Only its description changed.
| Manchester City (as found) | LA Clippers (as found) | |
|---|---|---|
| True category | Owner funding | Value tied to the team’s own business with the companies |
| Label applied | Sponsorship revenue | Endorsement income |
| Who controlled the label | The club and its owner | The team, with Leonard’s representative |
| Third party in the middle | Abu Dhabi-linked sponsors | Aspiration, Boingo, Daktronics, Lockton |
| Where it landed | Club revenue, widening the spending envelope | The player’s outside income, beyond the cap |
| Rule it went around | Premier League and UEFA loss limits | The NBA salary cap |
The labels differ because the rules differ. A loss limit measures what a club spends against what it earns, so the useful lie is about revenue. A salary cap measures what a team pays a player, so the useful lie is about what a payment is for. In both systems the party under the limit also had the best view of what the money was, and a way to describe it.
IV. Where the Cases Differ
The cases should not be treated as identical. They came before different tribunals under different rules and standards, and the findings are not the same kind of finding. At City the commission found the owner’s own money was routed through sponsors. In the Clippers case the findings centre on a team arranging and facilitating outside income for a player through counterparties who wanted its business. One case is about disguising where money came from. The other is about disguising what it was paid for. Both are about a label that could not be tested at the moment it mattered. Investigators in the NBA case concluded that the team also took steps to make its conduct look compliant on paper. For City, the league’s account is that the club concealed its true finances from auditors and regulators.
That difference is also why the comparison is useful. Two systems with different rules and different institutions failed at the same point.
Next, Post III: The Verifier Problem. Who was supposed to check the label, and why neither system did.
Randy Gipe · Claude / Anthropic · 2026 · Sub Verbis · Vera
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