The Emirati chair of Manchester City, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, received diplomatic immunity in the UK in 2020, which generally protects individuals from criminal prosecution and certain legal proceedings in the country where they serve.

On Tuesday, the Premier League announced that an independent commission had found City guilty on 115 counts of breaching its financial rules by artificially inflating its finances by more than £900 million.

Mubarak is the managing director and group CEO of Mubadala, a $330bn sovereign wealth fund whose main shareholder is the Abu Dhabi government.

Mubarak has chaired City since 2008. In 2013, he received a Commander of the Order of the British Empire honour, partly for strengthening cultural ties between the UK and the UAE, including through the football club’s acquisition.

The investigation found that City’s owners had “concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators” to bypass spending limits between 2008 and 2018.