Manchester City face a large fine, a points deduction, a transfer ban, the stripping of titles and trophies and even legal action from other football clubs, after being found guilty of 114 out of 115 charges of breaching the Premier League’s financial rules.
With the verdict – let alone the punishment – still to be officially confirmed, “the chaos and uncertainty is only going to increase” as “City fans, and the rest of football” speculate about how harsh the penalties might be, said Dale Johnson, the BBC’s football issues correspondent.
Man City have reportedly lodged an appeal but, should that fail, there will be a sanction hearing at which “everything will be on the table” – “even demotion” from the Premier League, said the BBC’s Johnson.
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The betting markets are already anticipating “just how heavily the Premier League could come down on the club”, wrote Lawrence Ostlere in The Independent. Despite their current position at top of the league, Man City were, on Saturday, sixth favourites to be relegated to the Championship, “with odds shortening by the minute”.
“There will be questions now” over the future of star players like Erling Haaland and Enzo Fernandez, but also “the people who run the football club”. Majority owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s Abu Dhabi United Group was “directly implicated in the alleged accountancy gymnastics”. Under the new Independent Football Regulator’s “honesty, integrity and financial soundness” rules for owners and directors, Man City’s “entire ownership is at risk” if the Premier League’s charges are upheld.
“If the full weight of football law were to be thrown at them”, a “hefty slice of football history would need rewriting”, said Tim Spiers on The Athletic. Man City won nine domestic trophies between 2009 and 2018 – the years the charges span. If these titles were rescinded, former Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and former Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers would become “Premier League title-winning managers”. That would be “very surreal”.
The idea of Man City having to “hand back silverware” may feel “far-fetched” but there is a “high-profile precedent”: the 2006 Calciopoli scandal in Italy, when one of Juventus’ titles was retrospectively given to Inter. There have also been “numerous cases” of international athletics medals being re-distributed after rule-breaking doping cases came to light.
‘Forever tainted’
“It’s hard not to feel some sympathy for Man City supporters,” said The Guardian’s editorial board. It seems likely that “the greatest period in their club’s history” will now be “forever tainted”. Some of the team’s football “during the Abu Dhabi era” has been “sublime, overseen by an inspired coach”, former manager Pep Guardiola. This sour ending is “a reminder that the volume of money now washing about at the top of the game has been bad for its sporting soul”.
It can’t take anything away “from the remarkable football journey we have been on”, said Man City fan and founder of City Xtra, Freddie Pye, in The Telegraph. My club has set new standards in “footballing brilliance”, led by “some of the most talented players ever seen”. That’s what we City fans “will forever cherish”, whatever sanctions are imposed or “a litany of critics argue”.
If the findings are upheld, this “will be about much more than Man City”, said Karren Brady, former vice-chair of West Ham United, in The Sun. It will become about how capable the Premier League is at “standing up to” a big club with a huge legal team, and applying its rules and punishments “fairly”. This legal battle has taken over two years already. “Man City may be the defendant” but “the credibility of the Premier League is in the dock, too”.
