Hull City owner Acun Ilicali has become the first Premier League chief to comment on Manchester City's guilty verdict, comparing the club's financial breaches to "doping and winning an Olympic medal".
The independent commission is set to rule the club guilty on all but one of the 115 charges, all of which City refute. Ilicali told the 1904 Club podcast: "Their chairman says they are innocent. I don't say they are guilty or not because they are saying they are innocent, and the Premier League says they are not innocent."
Financial doping comparison
Ilicali said: "If they are not innocent, I think it is no different to doping and winning an Olympic medal. This is financial doping at the end of the day. Bringing the top four or five players with huge money, breaking the rules. From that side, it doesn't look very positive."
He argued that if Manchester City lose any appeal against the decision, the punishment must be severe enough to deter others. "If you give a small punishment, then everybody will do it. For the future of football, and for it to be a clean future, this kind of thing if it happens, should be punished and not let people do something like that."
Ilicali's own experience
Ilicali's club was punished in 2025 by the EFL for making late payments to other clubs and had transfer fee restrictions placed on them in three windows, one of those later suspended. Having been through that, the owner wants to see a harsh punishment imposed on Manchester City to fit the extent of the breaches committed if the guilty verdict is confirmed and holds up.
"As an owner, I shouldn't speak too much about it, I think, because I'm not inside it to know everything about it in detail," Ilicali said. "From my side, I will make a general speech, which is that if something involved in football is unfair, then it should be punished."
Concern over financial gap
Ilicali also expressed concern about the growing financial distance between clubs. "I like natural money in football. For us, we will not have the budget of a top six or top 10 teams in England, but we respect that."
"We have enough [financial] distance [[between clubs] because of the income they have naturally. Please don't add more distance from some more money and make the distance higher and higher. It's enough distance with these teams' usual income."
"If there is a certain mistake, this mistake is not a mistake like I do it and I can appeal it. If there is a mistake like this, these kind of mistakes give crazy advantages to some teams and it's not fair."
