Manchester City have reportedly been found guilty on 114 of 115 Premier League charges, and former England international Danny Mills believes the club's ex-players won't be concerned about having their trophies taken away.
An independent commission delivered the verdict last month, covering a period from 2009 to 2018. City were found to have artificially inflated sponsorship deals to bypass financial rules.
Players' perspective on retrospective punishment
During that time, City won the Premier League three times. Mills, speaking to Gambling.com, argued that those involved would not be overly worried.
"You can't take away those moments from players and fans," Mills said. "It's very difficult retrospectively to go back and punish people where they've had all the accolades, they've had the open-top bus rides, the bonuses, the extended contracts - all those things off the back of it."
He added: "If you say City didn't win the title in 2019... yeah whatever, we know City won the Treble and four titles in a row. What are we suddenly going to go? Well, actually, they didn't win four titles in a row. You can't (do that), you can't take away the Treble, the Aguero moment. It's very difficult to rewrite the history books in that way."
Calls for unity amid the fallout
Erling Haaland, who was not at the club during the period of wrongdoing, has called for unity between players and fans. Speaking ahead of City's clash with Liverpool, he said: "I care a lot about the fans because I'm a fan myself and I feel with them as well."
Enzo Maresca told the in-house media team: "The feeling is fantastic, to be honest. The players are excited for the next two games. But especially they are excited because in this moment we are top of the league. The players are just focused on that. They know what we can control is the football side – they are not worried at all about different things."
Maresca continued: "They know their profession and they know that the noise is there but they don't care too much about the noise. They are just focused in this moment on how we can beat Liverpool and how, together with the fans, we can try to win in Anfield."
