English football was rocked on Tuesday after Manchester City were found to have overstated their finances by £900m over a nine-year period, using what were described as ‘sham’ sponsorship agreements to inject funds into the club and evade Premier League spending regulations.
City were found guilty of ‘all charges related to serious breaches’ of the rules, as well as most of the allegations concerning their failure to co-operate with the Premier League investigation.
The club intends to appeal the verdict. However, with a sanctions hearing expected before that appeal is considered, our experts have offered their views on what punishment Manchester City should face…
IAN HERBERT: The owners must be forced to sell… but rivals should say no to compensation
Manchester City should be relegated from the Premier League, with a 20-point deduction imposed in each of the following three seasons. Fines and points penalties alone would barely trouble a club of City’s resources, while automatic relegation could simply allow them to dominate the Championship next season. That outcome should not be accepted.
City’s typically combative response on Tuesday, which alleged bias by referring to the adjudication panel as a ‘Premier League commission’, should be treated as an aggravating factor. The same should apply if the club launches another prolonged appeal and loses it.
The Independent Football Regulator should compel the sale of the club. Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi owners have brought English football into disrepute and breached a signed commitment to operate the club with integrity. The club should also be stripped of its titles.
For the good of the sport, the other clubs should agree to an amnesty and refrain from pursuing compensation claims that would only enrich lawyers further.
City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak and CEO Ferran Soriano have both pleaded the club’s innocence
OLIVER HOLT: Start again in League Two – and yes, they should be stripped of titles
Like many people, I suspect, my view of what should happen to Manchester City has become increasingly severe as more details of the alleged wrongdoing have emerged. The scale of the breaches underlines the size of the advantage the club gained.
It also shows how difficult it was for clubs that followed the rules to compete with City. Should the appeal fail, Manchester City ought to be expelled from the Premier League and forced to rebuild from League Two.
My instinct is to oppose stripping a club of titles it has won, but I can see no alternative here. The problem with such penalties is that innocent supporters end up paying the price.
The ownership, however, must also face consequences. They should not be permitted to remain in charge of a historic club they have brought to this position.
TOM COLLOMOSSE: Guarantee relegation – then make the system fairer
Urgency is vital. For years, commentators have answered every development in this saga by saying, ‘It will take years.’ That cannot be allowed to continue.
Far too much time has already passed, and further months—or, worse, years—of uncertainty would cause serious damage to the Premier League and English football as a whole. Manchester City are entitled to appeal, of course. But when someone is convicted of a crime, the sentence is normally imposed before the appeal is heard. Reversing that order here would create even greater confusion.
Sergio Aguero’s famous goal against QPR in 2012 gave City their first league title since 1968
The sanction should be delivered quickly. City should receive a points deduction this season substantial enough to make relegation almost certain, followed by another deduction next term and a fixed compensation payment to every affected club, as proposed by former Aston Villa chief executive Christian Purslow. That would be more effective than removing titles.
There must also be a fairer financial framework. It is difficult to justify a system in which clubs such as Tottenham and Manchester United can underperform year after year yet continue spending heavily in the transfer market because they generate enormous commercial revenues.
A more balanced set of financial regulations would go a long way towards preventing another case like Manchester City’s.
KIERAN GILL: One big points deduction… and a multi-window transfer ban
If Manchester City succeed on appeal, the decision must be based on the evidence itself—not on an attempt to exploit a technical argument about impartiality or any other issue the club may raise. Following the independent commission’s verdict, their reputation is already badly damaged.
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The club’s only route back is to prevail on the merits, rather than continuing to obstruct the investigation. If the findings of guilt stand, Manchester City should not be allowed to remain in the Premier League for at least one season.
So in my mind, a hefty points deduction, circa 60-70 points, would be sufficient for a start. Along with a multi-window transfer ban, the stripping of the titles won (they would be tainted anyway and I would not re-allocate those titles to the runners-up), and I could not see how their ownership could remain the same.
Too harsh? If ultimately guilty, City will have been found to have deliberately sabotaged so many years of football for not only their own supporters but us all.
LEWIS STEELE: Dock points for nine years… and City’s current stars need answers
They should be docked points nine years in a row (given that’s how many years they were cheating for). A simple relegation is like a slap on the wrist: they would waltz the Championship and be fighting for Europe again within 18 months.
Elliot Anderson is among the Man City stars who may want answers from the club’s ownership
They have duped their rivals for a decade so should be punished accordingly. City fans — many of whom are in denial — are right to feel aggrieved but their anger should not be directed at the Premier League but the men that have run their club into the ground.
I also feel sorry for the likes of Enzo Maresca, Elliot Anderson, Enzo Fernandez etc — the people who have just joined the club and been lied to by the owners (it seems). Surely they have a claim?
MATT BARLOW: Play in the Championship next season – and put an asterisk next to all their titles
Cheating on such a vast and systematic scale demands a severe penalty with sporting consequences. Otherwise, what’s the point of anybody following the rules?
Money is no object to Manchester City’s owners. It defies the essence of sport if they can effectively pay to play by different rules. City should be expelled from the Premier League and all the titles won during the contaminated era should be asterisked. Swindon were denied entry to the top flight in 1990 for breaking financial rules.
I’m not sure how Chelsea escaped sporting penalty for their recent case, but that’s another story. City should start next season in the Championship. I can’t see a point in sinking them any further down the EFL food chain just to watch them squirm.
But all future accounts should be subject to scrutiny by football’s authorities to make sure they do not reoffend. I don’t think we should start meddling to redistribute titles, for where does that begin and end? But I expect there will be clubs seeking compensation. It’s easy to see why they will be aggrieved but at the same time a very depressing prospect.
Man City could be playing in the second tier for the first time since the 2001-02 season, when Eyal Berkovic and Shaun Goater were part of the squad which won promotion as champions
RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: Repay the rest of the pyramid by putting them in League Two
How to solve a problem like Manchester City? Turn them into a solution. To my mind, one season to the Championship isn’t severe enough for cheating that stretched across nine and has had residual benefits up to the present day.
So here’s an idea: a walk of shame to match the sham and one that feeds a financial boost to the lowest reaches of the pyramid.
The thought hinges on expulsion from the Premier League, if the guilty verdict remains intact after the appeals process.
Measures could be taken in the interim to prevent a tainted champion for 2026-27, such as a severe points deduction, with the expulsion occurring next summer (an optimistic timeline, perhaps).
The question then would be one of where to insert the club, which falls on the EFL. My suggestion is an immediate drop to League Two, guaranteeing City spend at least three seasons in the EFL before securing enough promotions to return to the Premier League.
The interest in the EFL in that period will be huge, as will the financial reward for each club they visit on their way back.
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