Manchester City are facing the very real threat of Premier League relegation after consistently breaking financial rules over a nine-year period. The club were found to have arranged "sham" commercial contracts as part of a scheme to conceal over £830million in secret funding. In addition, they filed misstated accounts and hid the true state of their finances from auditors and football regulators.
Club insists on "irrefutable evidence"
Despite the ruling, the club have insisted they have "irrefutable evidence" to prove their innocence and overturn the guilty verdict, which they are calling an "opinion". However, if they fail in their efforts to clear the charges, they will face severe punishment. A fine, points deduction, immediate expulsion from the Premier League or stripping of titles won between 2009 and 2018 are among the options on the table.
No relegation clauses for players
Since the verdict was initially reported last Friday, there has been considerable speculation regarding a potential mass exodus at the Etihad Stadium, especially if City are booted out of the Premier League altogether. However, it's claimed by The Athletic that none of their players, including Erling Haaland, have relegation clauses written into their contracts, which suggests that any interested clubs might struggle to negotiate cut-price deals.
It could also mean that City would still have to pay the wages of their players in full, even if they are relegated to League Two, despite many of them earning six figures each week. In any case, there will be no shortage of interest in the club's biggest stars if their appeal fails and they are expelled from the Premier League. Haaland has already been linked with a potential move to Arsenal, while Real Madrid have admired him since before he joined City.
Appeal expected to fail
Manchester City are set to appeal their guilty verdict over the coming days. It remains to be seen how the situation will develop over the coming days and weeks as City attempt to overturn their guilty verdict. Football finance expert Kieran Maguire believes their appeal is unlikely to be successful, telling BBC Radio 5 Live: "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."
