Manchester City are facing the prospect of unprecedented sanctions after Friday’s leaked news that the club has been found guilty of the vast majority of more than 100 charges. The Premier League has yet to confirm the verdict, but the ramifications are already being described as far-reaching and potentially endless.
Among the punishments that have been mooted are enormous fines, relegation, staggered points deductions, demotion to the North West Counties League and the placing of multiple giant asterisks against the club’s record. Should the most pessimistic predictions prove correct, City would do well to emerge from the episode with their Etihad Campus intact.
The club’s response has been defiant rather than chastened. In a letter to supporters, City chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak said: “The Premier League process still has a long way to run, and our confidence and intent in proving the club’s innocence is just as strong as when this began.” City have protested their innocence throughout the investigation into their financial affairs, and the letter made clear that position has not shifted.
Football finance expert Kieran Maguire, who has been in heavy demand for comment, cast doubt on the most severe of the proposed outcomes. “I don’t think automatic relegation will be applied,” he said. “We’re at the end of September and if we do that at the end of September, what’s Manchester City going to do until next August?” An appeal against any judgment remains the likeliest next step, and one played out over a timescale that cannot easily be hurried.
On the pitch, City currently lead the Premier League, and it remains to be seen what effect the guilty verdicts will have on the current team. Costly mistakes made by Nico O’Reilly and Marc Guéhi in England’s defeat at the hands of Spain suggest the prospect of sanctions against their club could yet prove a distraction.
The fallout has already extended well beyond the Etihad. Tony Pulis has said he and his Stoke City side were cheated in the 2011 FA Cup final, which they lost to Manchester City, in the wake of the verdict, while questions have also been raised over the standing of the honours City have won during the period under scrutiny.