Manchester City could be docked points before the end of the season and sent down to League Two, according to football finance expert Kieran Maguire. The bombshell news of their guilty verdict was initially reported over the weekend before the Premier League confirmed it on Tuesday evening.
City were found to have arranged "sham" contracts with commercial partners as part of a scheme to disguise over £830million in secret funding. The independent commission also found that the club failed to co-operate with the investigation, instead making "concerted efforts to stop and frustrate" the process before the verdict was handed down.
City have insisted they are innocent of the charges against them, claiming they have "irrefutable evidence" to disprove the guilty verdict, which they are labelling an "opinion".
Appeal and potential punishments
They are widely expected to appeal the ruling, but if they fail to overturn the conclusion reached by the independent commission, a range of heavy punishments will be on the table. A fine, points deduction, immediate expulsion from the Premier League or stripping of titles won between 2009 and 2018 are among the potential options.
Maguire believes the Premier League will be eager to conclude the appeal process as quickly as possible, which could lead to points being deducted before the end of the current campaign.
Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, he said: "I think there’s a very high chance it will be resolved, because if it isn’t, we end up with a situation like that of Burnley and Everton where a club could be relegated, Manchester City are not given a deduction this season and it’s given next season instead."
"The club which finishes 18th could say: 'Had the deduction been applied sooner, we would not have been relegated', so that adds to the complication."
"Looking at the Premier League’s press release, it does seem it is keen for this to be resolved as quickly as possible."
"If you take at the length of time it took in respect of Forest and Everton, once they had heard the evidence, actually applying the tariff was the quick part of the equation. It is listening to the evidence which is the torturous period which we have had up to now."
League Two possibility
Maguire went on to suggest that the EFL would be inclined to accept City as new members of League Two, should they be expelled from the Premier League.
"The EFL now do have a channel through which they will opt to consider punishments given by each other’s board," he explained. "Therefore, while the EFL does not have to take the recommendation of the Premier League commission, there is nothing to stop to stop it saying: 'Yes, we’ve heard it, we’ve spoken to our members and relegation to League Two is an appropriate punishment'."
"It would be in the EFL’s interests. Manchester City in the EFL is going to help them negotiate their next broadcasting deal. Manchester City being put into League Two means they are going to be the biggest show in town in the EFL for three seasons."
"If you talk to EFL club owners, some will say: 'It’s going to impact upon our ability to win promotion from League Two'. Others will say: 'It's going to be our biggest payday of the season, bring it on'."
Appeal prospects
Quizzed on whether City's appeal could succeed, Maguire replied: "The evidence seems to be overwhelming. Reading the summary report, one of Manchester City’s defences seems to be that the Premier League wasn’t in a position to hold this hearing because of the way the evidence had been obtained. That was very firmly rejected by the commission and I can’t see that overturned."
"As for what appears to be an overwhelming amount of evidence and the lack of faith in the Manchester City witnesses, I can’t really see anything based on hundreds of thousands of pieces of evidence and 7,000 pages of testimony for how it could be overturned from a legal point of view. It has to be an attack on the people involved."
