Man City FFP: Gerrard demands ‘strong’ two-part punishment and makes claim on ‘accepting PL medal’
Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard has revealed how he thinks Manchester City should be punished after the guilty FFP verdict.
Gerrard is among the footballers who could be handed a Premier League winner’s medal if Man City are stripped of their titles after being found guilty of almost all charges after being accused of breaching FFP regulations.
Man City were found to have produced several ‘sham’ deals to create around £900m of fake revenue to speed up their on-field progression, and they now face severe sanctions.
Enzo Maresca‘s side have appealed, but their potential punishments include a fine, transfer ban, points deduction, expulsion and/or being stripped of their Premier League titles.
Somewhat surprisingly, Gerrard has now stated that he has no interest in “accepting a Premier League medal” if Man City are stripped.
“It’s not personal for me in terms of the Man City players, because they’re all outstanding players, they’ve lived the moment, and they deserved to [win],” Gerrard said on The Overlap.
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“I’m not someone who’s going to sit here and say I would accept a Premier League medal or I want one that they’ve got.”
He added: “I think I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ve never won the Premier League, that I was short in that department in terms of winning it.
“I’ve come to terms with that. I’ve come to terms with the incident that happened to me at the back end of that season.”
Steven Gerrard demands two-part punishment for Manchester City
Despite this, Gerrard wants Man City to “suffer” and has called for a “strong” two-part punishment after the guilty verdict.
“Multi-year punishments, that would be my opinion,” Gerrard continued.
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“I’m not saying that’s the right opinion, but that’s just how I feel sitting here in this chair.
“I think putting them down to the Championship is not fair on the EFL. I don’t think it’s enough, because they’ll bounce back. You look at that team yesterday. Can you imagine that in the Championship? With all due respect, it’s not fair on the teams playing against City week in, week out. It’s not fair on the potential team that could be the third team to come up.
“I think it needs to be a transfer ban. I think it needs to be points over a period of time. And make them suffer like they’ve made everyone else suffer for the nine, ten years that they’ve done it for. That would be my opinion. But there needs to be an example set.
“I think if this was Liverpool, people would say, “Oh, you’re talking nonsense”. Yeah, I would protect Liverpool. I’d protect the Liverpool fans, because it’s not the fans’ fault, and I’d protect the ex-players. I probably would react in the same way as the City players have, but in their quiet times, they know there needs to be strong punishments for the sake of the game, the Premier League, the brand, the world.
“I was in a box yesterday, it was full of foreign players. All they wanted to talk about was what City were doing. So this has had a ripple effect worldwide. It needs to be sorted as quickly as possible, and sanctions need to be strong so it doesn’t happen again. Because they were strong with Everton. They were strong with Nottingham Forest. We’ve seen examples of other federations being strong in other countries, so good luck to the Premier League, they have to be strong.”
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