29 Sep 2026 21:06:52
City guilty of over £900m of sham contracts to inflate revenues and reduce costs, filing inaccurate accounts, having secret second contract's with employees and not cooperating.
Apart from that I think they're a fairly straightforward, honest and upstanding member of the Premier League with little to apologise for.

1.) 29 Sep 2026
29 Sep 2026 22:04:44
Good post Dune ; it increasingly seems like the Premier League authorities are actually more angry ( perhaps understandably ) at Citeh owners non compliance and non cooperation for many,many years of the investigation

rather than the actual financial misdemeanours themselves

Citeh owners continue to be somewhat bullish, admitting nowt and adamant this whole process has a very long way to go.

So it's still looking to all be a humungous tangled mess that imo continues to erode the standards and integrity of football ; the EPL has only existed for 34 seasons with over half those seasons affected/ tarnished.

Shame on several owners of football clubs and shane on rhe football authorities too!

2.) 29 Sep 2026
29 Sep 2026 22:07:46
and dont be that surprised now if Everton win their appeal re having to pay Burnley compensation.

3.) 29 Sep 2026
29 Sep 2026 22:28:29
Although I agree that that Man City should receive the hardest penalties ever procured in any football league, I still think that the financial and political weight that the vice president of the UAE and current owner or Man City Sheikh Mansour and his massively rich family will influence business leaders and political heads to persuade the Premiership hierarchy to make a lenient penalty.

For me there is only one penalty for this kind of disregard and blatant breaking of the rules and that is an instant relegation.
Fines and points reduction will mean nothing to this club who have massively broken the financial rules to make themselves an undeserving successful football club.

In a sporting sense there is only one word that can be labeled to Manchester City in the last ten years and that is "Cheats"

Sadly, I do believe they will get away with a very soft penalty, money rules, and they have enough to make it in their favour.

4.) 30 Sep 2026
30 Sep 2026 01:26:42
I disagree OP, relegation (to the Championship that would be) is the soft option. They should be expelled from the PL. and have to go cap in hand to the EFL to apply for membership, and be told that like any new member they would have to start at the bottom, ie League 2, just like Rangers had to do in Scotland. Also, in view of the contemptuous behaviour by their owners, they should be told they are barred from ever owning a Premier League football club in future, and the club can never be readmitted to the PL until there has been a change of ownership.


On top of that there needs to be a substantial fine (say £100M) , compensation to other PL clubs disadvantaged by their cheating, and a suspension from European competitions by UEFA say for 10 years.

5.) 30 Sep 2026
30 Sep 2026 03:35:24
I agree with you JR on what must/should happen to Citeh :
Citeh expelled from EPL ;
owners disbarred from owning an EPL club etc

But although I rarely agree with OP, he might yet be right with Citeh probably only getting very soft, very lenient penalties.

As one is reminded of the recent very lenient penalties Chelsea received for their 74 charges.a mere paltry for Chelsea £10 million fine.suspended points penalty and I think one season of not being allowed to buy players.

Ughhh.

6.) 30 Sep 2026
30 Sep 2026 08:26:28
I will not be surprised in the slightest to hear the """ I """ word thrown into public domain over this investigation.

7.) 30 Sep 2026
30 Sep 2026 08:30:17
The big differences Baz are that Chelsea turned themselves in and fully cooperated and that the infringements occurred under a previous owner. None of these apply to the City case. I agree they got off too lightly but showing some contrition obviously helped their case.
The Southampton spygate case resulted in a quick and severe penalty.

In addition the manager could well be suspended as he authorised a young intern to spy on opposing teams. Perhaps the PL should take the same line with City and ban those who were complicit in the various schemes and deem the owners as "unsuitable" stewards of the club if they were aware of what was going on.

8.) 30 Sep 2026
30 Sep 2026 11:22:14
You and I are broadly in agreement Baz. Whilst I've stated above what I think "should happen", the cynic in me has a quite different view on what "will happen". I think the PL will bottle it and just give them a points deduction sufficient to guarantee relegation (say 70 points) , a humungous fine (say £50M+) and a transfer ban (for say 2 seasons) and then leave it to the other clubs to pursue them for reparations and UEFA to apply European sanctions. That done they'd stroll the Champo even without most of their big stars (who'd all wantaway) and be back the next season polished shiny and new (and unrepentant) under the same ownership as if it were all just a bad dream.

When the Government baled out the big banks during the financial crisis a few years ago, an oft used phrase was that they were seen as "too big to fail", I think the PL see Man City in much the same light, and will back off from being as tough as they should be. I hope I'm wrong but we shall see.

9.) 30 Sep 2026
30 Sep 2026 11:54:06
Good further posts with good points Dune and JR.

Any guesstimates from you esteemed posters on how long approx the EPL might/will take to announce its sanctions for Citeh.

Promptish punishments announced before end of 2026 at latest

or

more slow burner process way into 2027 or beyond ?

10.) 30 Sep 2026
30 Sep 2026 12:31:46
I would hope it would be fairly quick, that is before the end of the season, as no new evidence can be submitted.
They can basically appeal on the grounds of errors in applying the regulations or misinterpretation of evidence or because the tribunal wasn't fair because of incorrect procedures or bias.
They can't go to CAS as the PL is totally under the jurisdiction of English law but they can go to the High Court and argue that the judgement is unfair, biased or against competition law.

If it goes to the High Court then it could drag on but it will only increase the toxic atmosphere between City and the rest of the clubs in the PL.