Five options for Manchester City fans after Premier League expulsion
We’re just preparing you for the worst, Manchester City fans. Don’t get angry – we’re doing this for you. You’re welcome.
If your club is expelled from the Premier League for some or all of the alleged 115 FFP breaches, which looks as though it will be even more likely if the legal case fails, we’ve come up with five options for you.
Again, don’t be upset. It might not happen.
READ NEXT: Man City explainer: What Premier League rules do they want scrapped? And which rivals support them?
Ebbsfleet United away
We wouldn’t hold out much hope if we were Manchester City of being allowed entry into the English Football League upon expulsion from the top flight. It’s apparently their legal action that stopped the proposed £900m deal to aid the EFL in its tracks, with fellow Premier League clubs not keen to give away cash if City are successful and are allowed to inflate sponsorship deals as much as they please.
“If we have to spend more to even try to keep pace with clubs like City, we might need to hold on to that money,” one prominent Premier League source said. The Premier League was ready to agree to the £900m payment over four years to the EFL before several clubs backtracked soon after City filed their claim.
There’s also no guarantee that the National League would accept City’s application, but assuming they did, the true diehards can enjoy trips to Ebbsfleet United, Wealdstone and Woking. Shame Pep Guardiola’s loyalty only stretches to League Two.
European Super League
City could technically compete in a new-fangled European Super League alongside their National League commitments, which may see the fanbase split somewhat. It looks set to be Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester City playing each other ten times a season as things stand, and we doubt there would be a huge amount of crossover between the City stars playing in the Bernabeu and those turning out to take on York City.
Those fans who have known little other than success – and there will be teenagers for whom that’s the case – will understandably struggle to get on board with football in the lower reaches of the English football pyramid when they’ve been used to Kevin De Bruyne ripping European giants apart. The ESL may well be for them.
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Boycott football
Simple really. If football doesn’t want Manchester City then Manchester City fans don’t want football. It’s not going to be easy to go cold turkey, so maybe they can become avid fans of internationals. Plenty of people follow their nations home and away and have a right old time.
Or maybe they will entirely turn their backs on it and do other stuff. We’re quite sure there is other stuff to do, though we are slightly confused as to how people who don’t watch football remember key dates in their lives when they’re not in association with a specific game or season. Could look at old calendars or something.
Follow Pep Guardiola
There are plenty of young people who love football but don’t support a football team. There will be some who will be watching Real Madrid games next season having followed Paris Saint-Germain for the last few years. They’re Kylian Mbappe stans. It’s not for us, but each to their own.
If any football manager can have a group of fans/disciples like Mbappe, Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi it’s Guardiola. Reports suggest he’s off at the end of next season anyway, which would test the theory whether City get done or not. The question is, where does he go?
Guardiola’s said he wants to manage at a World Cup, in which case we could see a bunch of Mancunians drinking in New York wearing Spain shirts and drinking sangria in 2026.
Support Newcastle
It would take extraordinary plasticity, but there will be a few who purport to be fans of Manchester City but actually really like all of that lovely money that comes with nation state ownership. And if attempts to prove ‘discrimination against Gulf ownership’ fail and City are expelled, why not support a club owned by one of the other countries being so hard done by?
The good news for those City turncoats is that they’ll be able to enjoy the rise to the top table having presumably – owing to their willingness to defect – not been around for the ascension of their current club. The trophies, the marquee signings, the big-name managers, all to come at your new football club.