Gary Neville has called for the Premier League to remove Manchester City's owners following the club's guilty verdict on multiple financial charges, branding it the 'only fair' punishment. The top flight issued a statement this week, confirming City had been found guilty on 114 of the 115 charges levelled against them.
Supporters, pundits and fellow Premier League clubs now await the sanctions City will face for their violations, though the club are widely expected to appeal the independent panel's ruling. They have maintained their innocence throughout the process so far and have until Friday, October 2, to lodge that appeal.
Potential sanctions and speculation
While some have suggested City could be stripped of titles won between 2009 and 2018 - the nine-year period during which the alleged breaches are said to have occurred - others have called for the club's outright expulsion from the Premier League. Further speculation points to a substantial points deduction that could effectively condemn them to relegation, along with significant fines or transfer embargoes.
However, Manchester United legend Neville believes the most appropriate course of action would be to bar City's current ownership from participating in the Premier League altogether. Speaking on the latest episode of Stick to Football, he explained: "Manchester City will recover as a football club because Manchester City have been there longer than these owners, they'll be there long after them, and it's got an immense history."
Neville's warning on integrity
"Points deductions, fines, transfer bans, removing the titles - not giving them to others, just removing the titles - it's significant punishments. The only punishment that would be fair would be have huge consequences - the biggest consequence - would be removing the owners."
"That is the only consequence if I was Manchester City that I would be worried about. And as a fan of Manchester City, if you wanted to keep the investment that you've currently got, that would be the one I'd be most concerned about."
"However, if you're in football and you're thinking about consequence, what can be more serious than industrial-level financial doping that we've seen and they've been found guilty of? I'm not celebrating."
"I'm chilled. This is chilling. I support Manchester United, [Jamie Carragher] supports Liverpool, [Roy Keane and Ian Wright] played for Manchester United, Arsenal, [Jill Scott] played for City."
"This is chilling to listen to this. It's chilling. The Italian game has suffered immeasurably over the last 25 years, maybe from after [Calciopoli]. You know, we've played Juventus, we've alluded to this before, we felt at the time that this wasn't right."
"And I'm not saying that's going to happen to the Premier League. But we always think we've got this enormous integrity, the Premier League, that we are the league that sets the standard and it's other leagues that have got corruption, fraud, doping scandals, match fixing, referee scandals."
"This has now come into our country, this has now come into our league. This is the greatest export that we have in our country in the world. If you go around the world and talk about Liverpool, Manchester, Arsenal - people talk about the Premier League more than anything when you tell them where you're from in the world. And at the moment, we're being dragged through the mud."
Carragher and regulator weigh in
The comments come as Carragher called on City's owners to relinquish control of the club following their guilty verdict. Writing in the Telegraph, he said: "Manchester City are the end of their Abu Dhabi era."
"The club can only heal and recover from the shame of their guilt once the custodians recognise they have failed in their duty and sell up. There is no way to sugar-coat this."
"The scale of the institutional cheating and lack of co-operation in the investigation means the position of all City executives involved is untenable. Fighting on will only prolong the agony of supporters who wrong believe their pleas of innocence."
The Independent Football Regulator has confirmed that it has the power to investigate the "suitability" of all Premier League club owners, directors and executives - a development that may cause considerable concern for Khaldoon Al Mubarak and the Abu Dhabi group.
IFR chair, David Kogan, said: "The independent commission's decision raises serious issues. The IFR has powers to assess the suitability of owners, directors and executives and we will use these powers where appropriate, in the interests of protecting the sustainability, honesty and integrity of English football where there is clear evidence of wrongdoing by individuals."
"This includes taking account of findings made by the Leagues. However, as the proceedings remain ongoing between Manchester City and the Premier League we will await further developments."
In a separate development, the Financial Times revealed on Thursday that Al Mubarak was added to the UK's official diplomat list in 2020, a designation that would afford him immunity from any prospective criminal investigations - and in all likelihood civil proceedings too.
