To be fair to him, I think the 2014 investigation and settlement was largely about the ability the club had to increase sponsorship revenue from the UAE effectively as required and, when that wasn't sufficient, the creative accounting around intangible assets, both of which, I suppose, could be called accelerated investment, or even, colloquially, "cooking the books". Various paranoid and xenophobic players around UEFA were worried about City's rise and were determined to stop it, though. Hence the late change to wage deductions to ensure the club failed FFP and the settlement-imposed restrictions on the share of sponsorship the club could take from the UAE and the effective reversal of the IA sales (iirc) as well as the fine and squad limitations.
That was my take on it at the time, at least.