Who Owns Manchester City?

Manchester City’s ultimate controlling person is Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, recorded at Companies House as holding 75% or more of the shares and voting rights in City Football Group Limited. The club plays through Manchester City Football Club Limited, company number 00040946, incorporated in 1894. Three holding companies sit between the two. Ownership verified 5 September 2026.

Who owns Manchester City?

The club is Manchester City Football Club Limited (00040946), incorporated on 16 April 1894 and registered at the Etihad Stadium. That company is not independently owned: its registered person with significant control is Manchester City Limited (02989498), holding 75% or more of the shares and voting rights.

Above that sits City Football Group, and above City Football Group sits Sheikh Mansour personally.

Current owners and shareholding structure

The chain recorded at Companies House is:

1. Manchester City Football Club Limited (00040946) — the club
2. Manchester City Limited (02989498) — 75%+ of shares and votes
3. City Football Group (Midco) Limited (14120242) — 75%+, notified 3 October 2022
4. City Football Group Limited (08355862) — 75%+, notified 20 May 2022
5. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan — 75%+ of shares and voting rights, United Arab Emirates

City Football Group also has minority investors who sit below the 25% PSC threshold and therefore do not appear on the register — reported at around 18% for the US investment firm Silver Lake and about 1% for China’s CITIC Group. The register shows control, not the full cap table, so an absence from it is not an absence of investment.

Key controlling people and entities

Two points are routinely reported incorrectly, and the register contradicts both.

Abu Dhabi United Group is not the registered controller. ADUG (registered in the Jebel Ali Free Zone, number OF114712) appears on the records of both Manchester City Football Club Limited and Manchester City Limited — but as a ceased PSC, ended 6 April 2016. The active entries name the UK holding companies instead, and the ultimate controller is Sheikh Mansour as an individual.

The group was restructured in 2022. City Football Group (Midco) Limited was incorporated and became the registered controller of Manchester City Limited on 3 October 2022, replacing City Football Group Limited, which had held that position since 2016. City Football Group Limited did not disappear — it now sits one level higher, as the controller of Midco. Sources written before late 2022 describe a chain that no longer matches the register.

Khaldoon Al Mubarak chairs the club, but chairing is not owning, and he is not a registered PSC of any company in the chain.

Ownership history

The club was bought by Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008, from former Thailand prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. City Football Group was subsequently created as a holding structure for Manchester City and the clubs acquired alongside it.

As with most UK companies, the PSC entries are dated 6 April 2016 — the date the PSC regime began, not the date any ownership changed. The genuinely informative date on these records is 3 October 2022, when the Midco layer was inserted.

Related clubs or investment group

City Football Group holds interests in clubs across several continents, with Manchester City as its flagship. The size of those stakes varies considerably: some clubs are wholly owned, others are minority investments, and treating every CFG club as “owned by Manchester City’s owners” flattens a real distinction.

Multi-club ownership is also regulated. Competition rules restrict clubs under common control from meeting in the same tournament, which has practical consequences for CFG clubs that qualify for European competition in the same season.

Sources and verification

Every statement about the ownership chain comes from the Companies House PSC register, followed company by company. Company numbers are given at each step so the chain can be checked independently rather than taken on trust.

The minority stakes held by Silver Lake and CITIC are not on the PSC register — they fall below the threshold — and are reported here as reported figures rather than register-verified ones. Companies House does not verify most filed information, and ownership is stated as at the verification date above.