An investigation which began nearly four years ago has finally reached a long-awaited verdict: Manchester City have reportedly been found guilty of 114 breaches of the Premier League’s financial regulations.
News of their financial misconduct was revealed on Friday and it’s naturally resulted in mass speculation over appropriate sanctions for the club.
Any punishment will be subject to City’s anticipated appeal and could include a seismic points deduction, enforced relegation and, in the most extreme case, even the renunciation of past Premier League titles.
But how many trophies could City be stripped of after their guilty verdict?
Every Trophy Man City Could Forfeit for Financial Breaches
City’s financial breaches occurred between 2009 and 2018, meaning the presumption is that only Premier League titles won during that timeframe can be stripped from them. Whether they would also surrender the FA Cup trophy and three League Cup titles won in that spell is unclear.
The Cityzens won the Premier League three times across that nine-year period, with their first crown coming courtesy of that fabled Sergio Agüero goal in the dying embers of the 2011–12 campaign. They were then champions again in 2013–14 and 2017–18.
If those three trophies are taken from them, it would mean City have only won the competition five times, with all of those triumphs coming under Guardiola. Both Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini would no longer be Premier League-winning managers, while club icons like David Silva and Vincent Kompany would lose three of their four titles.
Another consideration is whether the teams that finished runner-up to City during their guilty seasons would be retrospectively awarded titles.
Manchester United finished second during both the 2011–12 and 2017–18 seasons under Sir Alex Ferguson and José Mourinho respectively, while Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard would finally get the Premier League title that eluded him as the Reds were closest to City in 2013–14.
| Season | Trophy Man City Won | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|
| 2010–11 | FA Cup | Stoke City |
| 2011–12 | Premier League | Man Utd |
| 2012–13 | Community Shield | Chelsea |
| 2013–14 | EFL Cup | Sunderland |
| 2013–14 | Premier League | Liverpool |
| 2015–16 | EFL Cup | Liverpool |
| 2017–18 | EFL Cup | Arsenal |
| 2017–18 | Premier League | Man Utd |
Will Man City Actually Lose Three Premier League Titles?
While it remains a possibility that City are stripped of three Premier League titles, it appears an increasingly unlikely punishment despite the scale of their guilt.
James Hill, a legal director at Onside Law, revealed such extreme sanctions seemed improbable when discussing City’s charges in 2023.
“I would expect that if there is a points deduction, it would be applied going forward,” said Hill. “Generally, panels don’t like deciding titles in a court process. Doing it that way does not give a real tangible punishment to the club.”
There is precedent of such a penalty in Italy, however, with Juventus stripped of their 2004–05 and 2005–06 Serie A crowns following the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal. The Turin side were also relegated to Serie B for the 2006–07 campaign. The first of those seasons had no winner while the second was retroactively given to second-placed Inter Milan, much to the disgust of all fans who weren’t wearing blue and black.
However, that was a very different set of circumstances involving actual on-pitch influence, and a hefty points deduction appears more likely for City.
“If we take a look at precedence, we have had Everton and Nottingham Forest with six and four-point deductions for a single offense covering a three-year period. The accusations against Manchester City cover a nine-year period, so it is far bigger,” soccer finance expert Kieran Maguire explained back in February.
“The numbers involved, we are not certain about, but they are likely to be quite significant. I think you have to add a zero to what we’ve seen in terms of Forest and Everton, so somewhere between a 40 and 60-point deduction would be consistent with what we’ve seen with other decisions.”
Within the corridors of power in the Premier League, some executives speculated to The Athletic that there could be more “creative” punishments for City, with the potential for a large number of points to be deducted in multiple future seasons to hamper their qualification for European competition rather than force them into a relegation battle.
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