Man City: Prem clubs gang up to demand rapid FFP sanctions as ‘most likely’ punishment is FINALLY revealed

Premier League sides are keen to ensure any punishment meted out to Manchester City for 114 breaches of financial irregularities is administered this season, with a report revealing why all other 19 sides feel relegation to the Championship is not deemed severe enough.

A lengthy probe into financial misconduct by the Cityzens finally arrived this week, confirming they had been found guilty on 114 out of 115 charges levelled against them, dating between 2009 and 2018.

However, the process is far from complete. While a separate review into what punishment they should receive is now underway, Manchester City are themselves planning a very robust review, with their CEO Ferran Soriano coming out swinging.

As the club continues to protest their innocence, TEAMtalk exclusively revealed on Wednesday that City, in conversation with a top sports lawyer, plan to take their case all the way to the High Court.

Now, amid a fear that further proceedings could take months to resolve, The Times journalist Martin Ziegler says clubs will “demand” the case against City is fully decided before the culmination of this season, in time for any sanctions to be enforced for the 2027/28 campaign.

The good news is that the Premier League guidelines have already advised that any decision should be reached before the end of January, while any appeals process on any sanctions would face ‘similar time restrictions’.

And while City’s lawyers are determined to fight back and ‘could argue the new timescales should not apply as this case was already under way before the new rules were agreed’, Ziegler reports that, amid a call for a ‘substantial punishment ‘, ‘other top-flight clubs are adamant it cannot drag on’.

Quoting an unnamed Premier League side, it’s revealed: “The new regulations around the timescale of appeals have to apply.

“We have all waited far too long, and it is high time that this whole thing came to an end. The view of many of the clubs is that it would simply be unacceptable, after all this time, for it to go beyond the end of the season.”

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‘Relegation to the Championship will not be enough’

So what punishment could City actually face?

Per The Guardian, the level of City’s deceit, which saw them inflate their alleged incomings by more than £830m in that period, means a huge punishment will be forthcoming.

Quoting an unnamed source, relegation to the second tier would not present a strong enough punishment.

“Relegation to the Championship for one season would be insufficient,” a club source told the paper. “The commission has to arrive at a punishment that is proportionate for years of sustained and deliberate cheating, as well as providing a strong deterrent to it happening again.”

Prior to this, journalist Ben Jacobs has presented a doomsday scenario that could see City tumble not just out of the Premier League but out of the EFL altogether.

Despite that, a report in Football Insider says that City’s expulsion from the 92 entirely can only be called if a special ‘mechanism’ is put in place.

However, former Everton CEO Keith Wyness says there is only a “very slim chance” of this happening, instead revealing the ‘most likely’ outcome is City being deducted enough points to ensure “the normal relegation situation”.

“Well, there’s just no system, as I’m aware, to handle this sort of thing. So basically what you’re asking is if they were expelled from the Premier League. I think there’s about a 10 per cent chance of that happening, a very slim chance,” Wyness told Football Insider.

“I’ll go back to my first point when I said about trying to make sanctions that don’t affect everybody else. This would also affect clubs in the EFL right now.

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“But there is no mechanism, I understand it, between the EFL and the Premier League to parachute a club out of the Premier League if it’s not through relegation.

“So it would have to be through the normal relegation situation for them to go down a league. That’s where I’d see it happening. But I don’t think the expulsion would happen; it’s very unlikely.

“I think the other clubs in the EFL would be wanting to try and block that position as well. So it’s a difficult one to see happening for an expulsion from the Premier League.”