Manchester City should be stripped of all titles won between 2009 and 2018, relegated and given a huge fine as a result of their guilty verdict on breaches of the Premier League's financial rules, according to MEN readers. The Premier League confirmed the news of an independent panel's findings this week in a damning statement.
However, City are largely expected to appeal the decision, given the club have consistently pleaded their innocence throughout the saga, which has been running since 2023. They have until Friday, October 2 to do so.
Readers' verdict on sanctions
Due to the Premier League having to work through an appeals process, football fans worldwide could face another lengthy wait until they learn what punishment City will be given for their alleged infractions. That hasn't stopped people speculating potential sanctions that could come the Cityzens' way, should they fail their appeal.
We launched a poll last week to find out what our readers think the consequence of City's actions should be, with over 16,600 of you having your say. Around eight per cent of voters felt as though City should be handed a huge fine, while 10 per cent approved of relegation from the Premier League.
Elsewhere, seven per cent of voters felt as though City should be stripped of their Premier League titles. The majority, however, equating to around 40 per cent, voted for all of the above punishments.
Gary Neville calls for owner removal
Finally, 35 per cent of the vote was consumed by a consensus that nothing will happen and that the club will appeal their verdict. It comes as Gary Neville has suggested a different punishment for Manchester City, in that the club's owners should be forced out by English top-flight officials.
Speaking on the latest instalment of Stick to Football, the Sky Sports pundit and former Manchester United talent said: "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.
"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."
