Well, yes, that makes sense. They met him once before they offered him the City job and liked him, so they offered him the City job but couldn't sign him up because of the Inter clause, so they kept him warm with a lucrative consultancy contract until they could comfortably sign him or, in Hughes's case, had to sign him because it was going tits up. The contract was continued for Mancini's tax reasons, all negotiations and contracts being handled by the club.
Sounds more than plausible to me.
Anyway, its all speculation, but I am much more comfortable with that as an explanation than the club deliberately trying to mislead the PL for reasons which aren't, at all, apparent. Balance of probability, if you will.
It's OK to disagree, though.