Manchester City are still waiting to learn the outcome of the appeal process after being found guilty of 114 financial breaches in their case with the Premier League. An independent commission found the club had arranged "sham" contracts with commercial partners as part of a scheme to disguise over £830million in secret funding.
City also failed to cooperate with the investigation to the fullest extent, instead making "concerted efforts to stop and frustrate" the process. They have denied any wrongdoing and launched an appeal last week, insisting they have a body of "irrefutable evidence" that will overturn the guilty verdict and clear the charges against them.
Potential punishments if appeal fails
If that verdict is upheld, City will face a range of potential punishments. They could be fined, docked points, expelled from the Premier League, or even have their domestic titles won between 2009 and 2018 declared null and void.
The situation has led to renewed scrutiny directed at the club's owners, the City Football Group, which itself is majority-owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group. That organisation is headed up by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, member of the Abu Dhabi royal family and vice president of the United Arab Emirates.
Pressure on the owners
It's been suggested in some quarters that Sheikh Mansour should sell the club in light of the guilty verdict handed down to City earlier this month. The club's owners have already been warned that the Independent Football Regulator has the power to strip them of their position.
While City are not directly owned by the UAE, Sheikh Mansour and club chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak are inextricably linked to the Middle Eastern country and its capital, Abu Dhabi.
Author predicts a sale
Christopher Davidson, author of Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond, recently told The Athletic that he believes Sheikh Mansour will sell the club if their appeal is not successful in clearing their name.
"Once there’s some time to digest this, my feeling would be that they would extricate themselves," said Davidson. "I think primarily it would be seen from a political and cultural aspect.
"The ruling family of Abu Dhabi would feel that they had been embarrassed and disgraced by this ruling, and the best way of moving forward would be to sell now to cut the losses, as it were, rather than allow this to be a festering, lingering problem where the ownership of their club would be forever tainted in England. I can’t see any scenario where they would continue."
In an interview with City's in-house media channels in June, Al Mubarak said the owners had "no intention to sell" the club under any circumstances. He added: "Manchester City and this group within the football world is a pinnacle and these sorts of jewels you don’t sell."
