Richard Dunne has insisted that Manchester City's on-pitch achievements cannot be taken away, while acknowledging that the independent commission's findings mean there will always be an asterisk over them.
Dunne, 47, made more than 350 appearances for City before joining Aston Villa in the summer of 2009 after being replaced by Joleon Lescott and Kolo Toure. The former captain returned to the club two years ago, first working with the under-16s before joining the under-18s coaching team alongside Toure. He has also worked as a pundit since retiring in 2015, appearing regularly on television in Ireland.
Verdict on financial breaches
The former defender spoke on Tuesday, hours after an independent commission found City guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League's financial rules over a nine-season period between the 2009/10 and 2017/18 seasons.
Speaking on Virgin Media 2, Dunne said: "If the verdict is upheld after the appeal, it's the biggest scandal in Premier League history, in English footballing history.
"I don't know about taking away the generation of football that we've seen, because what those players did on the pitch was incredible."
Asterisk on achievements
He added: "It was a coach (Pep Guardiola) who put a group of players together, probably not fairly, but it wasn't his call, so he's got a group of players, and what they've produced, the games that they've won, the trophies that they've won, it's just incredible. The style of football was amazing.
"Looking back on it now, how much does it mean in terms of, do the trophies last, all that sort of stuff? There is obviously always going to be an asterisk about what they've achieved."
"You can never take away from what you've seen on the pitch and the moments that the fans have shared, the players have shared; all that stuff stays and remains forever.
"It puts a black mark against the club in terms of how they've gone about things, what they've done, and how they've lied to the fans. They've not been fair to the rest of the Premier League, and they've not been correct in how they've conducted themselves."
Impact on the league
Dunne concluded: "The rest of the Premier League is irrelevant until this is sorted. You go and watch, I think they're playing Liverpool in a couple of weeks' time on Super Sunday, what does that actually mean if all this isn't sorted by then?
"I think for the club, they want to clear their name, they want to get themselves back onto an even keel with the rest of the league and show that they weren't cheating, they weren't breaking the rules and try and move forward."
