Manchester City’s rivals have begun lobbying for the club to be sanctioned before the end of this season, with one Premier League executive telling BBC Sport that a points deduction heavy enough to relegate the champions to the Championship for a single campaign would be “insufficient” punishment for what Premier League chief executive Richard Masters called systematic rule-breaking stretching across nearly a decade.
The pressure, reported by BBC sports editor Dan Roan on Wednesday, has built with remarkable speed. It is barely 48 hours since the commission found City guilty of serious breaches of Premier League financial regulations spanning the 2009-10 to 2017-18 seasons — 114 of the 115 charges proven, according to BBC and Goal, though the Premier League’s own statement referred simply to “all charges”. City have until Friday 2 October to lodge an appeal, and chief executive Ferran Soriano has already signalled the club intends to use every avenue open to it.
That is precisely what the other 19 clubs are afraid of. City sit top of the table with five wins from five and 15 points, three clear of Arsenal. If the sanction lands in the summer rather than the spring, the 2026-27 title race will have been run under a cloud that nobody — City included — can see through.
‘Unacceptable’ for it to run past May
Club officials have spoken only anonymously, which tells you how carefully this is being handled. The language is unambiguous. “It benefits everyone for this to be resolved as quickly as possible,” one executive said. Asked whether the case must conclude this season, another replied: “Instinctively yes, but it has to be done right.” A third was blunter: it would “simply be unacceptable, after all this time, for it to go beyond the end of the season”.
There is a weary realism underneath it. “We can all see what the risks are if it’s not,” one official conceded. “But those risks have been there throughout the process, as they’ve won the league multiple times during it.” The charges were issued in February 2023. The commission’s findings arrived 1,331 days later. City won three more Premier League titles in the interim.
The procedural arithmetic is, at least, more encouraging than it once was. Rules introduced this season require an appeal to be concluded within 12 weeks, after which the appeal board has 30 days to deliver judgment — a timetable that points to a resolution around January 2027. The sanctions hearing, at which the Premier League board will argue for its preferred punishment and City will argue against, can run concurrently with the appeal. The league has formally stated it wants the case “concluded as soon as possible”.
The obvious snag: City can argue those rules were written long after their charges were filed, and should not bind them. Expect it.
Why relegation may not be enough
The more striking demand is not the timing but the severity. Several clubs are pressing for a sanction producing a prolonged absence from the top flight, not a one-season demotion. One executive framed it as a question of deterrence — a penalty proportionate to “years of sustained and deliberate cheating”.
The commission’s numbers explain the anger. It found that of £949.94m in sponsorship revenue declared from Abu Dhabi-linked companies between 2009 and 2018, only £119.25m — 13% — was actually paid as base fees by the sponsors. The remaining £830.69m was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group, the club’s owner, through what the panel called a “Disguised Funding Scheme”. In 2016-17, just 8% of £140.59m in booked sponsorship came from real sponsors. Over the same period City spent £1.2bn on transfers and won seven major trophies.
The panel also found continued concealment, and that some witnesses gave evidence they knew to be untrue. Etihad Airways, City’s shirt sponsor since 2009, “categorically rejects any finding … that suggests the airline has ever been involved in improper commercial arrangements” and is considering legal action against the Premier League.
The precedents barely help
The available range runs from a fine to expulsion, and the domestic precedents are close to useless at this scale. Everton were docked 10 points in 2023-24 for a £19.5m overspend, cut to six on appeal; Nottingham Forest lost four. No Premier League title has ever been stripped. Scale Everton’s tariff to City’s alleged inflation and you arrive at numbers — 60 points, 100 points — that pundits have floated and that no commission has ever had to contemplate.
One route is closed. City cannot take this to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, where in 2020 they overturned a two-year UEFA ban and had a €30m fine cut to €10m on unproven and time-barred grounds. Their last resort would be a High Court challenge on impartiality.
What happens next
- Friday 2 October: deadline for City to lodge their appeal.
- Appeal and sanctions hearing: potentially concurrent; 12-week ceiling plus 30 days for judgment.
- January 2027: earliest realistic date for a final outcome.
- Beyond that: compensation claims from rival clubs, and a bill for the Premier League’s legal costs expected to run to tens of millions.
For now, City keep playing, keep winning, and keep topping a table whose final shape nobody can guarantee. That is what the other chief executives want ended before May — and this week they said so loudly enough to be heard.
Ahmad Ali is Sports Editor at SportsPortal.net.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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