Pep Guardiola’s faith in Manchester City throughout the tumultuous speculation surrounding the 115 Premier League charges leveled at the club for various financial breaches never wavered.
“I trust them,” he declared. “I spoke with them and trust how they behave and how they did. What happened, happened.” It would appear that his trust was misplaced.
After more than three years of deliberations and 17 years on from the first supposed indiscretion in 2009, it has now been widely claimed that City will be found guilty of almost every allegation thrown their way by the Premier League.
To boil down a desperately-complicated case that has reportedly cost England’s top flight in excess of £200 million ($264.9 million) to argue in an independent tribunal, City have chiefly been accused of artificially inflating their revenues to avoid breaking Premier League spending rules.
The competition has dished out severe punishments for “minor breaches” of these regulations in the past, so the consequences City are staring down look stark.
Every Punishment Man City Could Face for 115 Premier League Charges
Reprimand
The Premier League handbook has helpfully listed every punishment that could face a team penalized by an independent commission. There are a raft of potential consequences, including the humdrum “reprimand,” although City are set to face a rather sterner test of their resolve.
Financial Penalty
The Premier League have it within their power to impose “a fine unlimited in amount and suspend any part thereof,” but again, this would not appear to be the most likely solution. It’s been established for the best part of two decades that cash is no issue for City. As former Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez scoffed when Gareth Barry made the move to the Etihad after the club’s Abu Dhabi takeover in 2009, there is “only one reason a player chooses to go to Manchester City.”
England’s top flight also makes it clear that any and all punishments can be combined, so City may face sporting and financial punishments. When UEFA banned the club from all competitions in 2020, they also slapped a $34.2 million (€30 million) fine on top.
Suspension
This is where it starts to ratchet up a level. Under the omnipotent rule of the Premier League, City can be suspended from the competition’s fixtures immediately and “for such period as it thinks fit.”
Points Deductions
This has been the weapon of choice for the Premier League when confronting previous breaches of its financial regulations. However, as soccer finance expert Kieran Maguire has explained, City are in for a far steeper penalty.
“If we take a look at precedence, we have had Everton and Nottingham Forest with six and four-point deductions for a single offence covering a three-year period,” Maguire outlined earlier this year. “The accusations against Manchester City cover a nine-year period, so it is far bigger.
“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, on merit to be consistent with what we’ve seen with other decisions, would make a lot of logic.”
It’s key to stress that City cannot automatically be relegated to down to the lower leagues of the English soccer pyramid as the Premier League is a different entity from the Championship or Leagues One and Two. A big enough points deduction, however, would surely leave City with took much of a chasm to make up in a relegation battle.
Pep Guardiola steered his side to second place last season with 78 points. Even if the Premier League had applied the smaller punishment of 40 points, City would still have finished in 18th place, one point below relegated West Ham United.
Expulsion
The Premier League may not be able to slot City into League Two, but they do have the power to simply expel the club from the competition. In that instance, it would be up to the English Football League (EFL, the governing body that runs the pyramid below the top flight) to decide whether to accept City and which tier they would be put into.
Financial Compensation
City could also face the prospect of being forced to “pay compensation unlimited in amount” to any club to have been impacted by their breaches. During the period in question (2009–18), City won three Premier League titles—two at the expense of Manchester United and one ahead of Liverpool—as well as three FA Cups. Those various runners-up may be looking for some revenge.
Carte Blanche
The Premier League also afforded themselves one final joker clause. On top of all the punishments listed above, the competition can also dish out “such other penalty as it shall think fit.”
Can Man City Be Retroactively Punished?
That freedom to dish out any punishment they like would also allow for retroactive action, namely, stripping City of the titles they won during the period in question. However, it would appear unlikely for the Premier League to willingly discredit its own history.
“I would expect that if there is a points deduction, it would be applied going forward,” Onside Law’s legal director, James Hill, who specializes in sports regulatory matters, told The Athletic.
“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.”
Those who lost out on those titles to City may argue otherwise.
| 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 |
