Man City FFP: PL rivals ‘propose alternative penalty’ to ‘insufficient expulsion’ given ‘scale of cheating’

Lewis Oldham
Man City boss Pep Guardiola
Man City are facing 115 charges for alleged breaches of Premier League FFP.

Manchester City’s Premier League rivals reportedly ‘believe a points deduction would be insufficient’ if they are found guilty of breaching FFP rules.

It emerged at the start of last year that Man City have been charged with breaching over 100 of the Premier League’s Financial Fair Play rules.

The Premier League referred Man City to an independent commission after conducting a four-year probe into their conduct between 2009 and 2018.

If found guilty, Man City could be given a huge fine, transfer ban, points deduction or even be expelled from the Premier League.

This is a complicated case and a further spanner was thrown into the works earlier this year as Man City launched a legal battle against the Premier League as they campaign for the removal of Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules.

This case has already concluded but the public has not been informed whether Man City were successful. If the verdict was in favour of Pep Guardiola’s side, it’s understood that it would dramatically alter their FFP case as most of their charges would become redundant.

READ: Man City stars reassigned after FFP ‘expulsion’: Foden to Chelsea as CB gets ‘dream’ Liverpool move

The FFP case gets underway on Monday and it’s been reported that an initial verdict will not be reached until the start of next year. Even then, the hearing could drag on as Man City or the Premier League could appeal the decision.

Last week, Guardiola claimed Man City’s Premier League rivals “want” them “to be sanctioned”.

“For the fact that all the Premier League teams want us to be sanctioned that is for sure – I agree with Tebas for the first time, and hopefully the last,” Guardiola said.

“That’s why I say to Mr Tebas and the Premier League teams – wait for the independent panel. Justice is there in a modern democracy so yeah, wait for the decision, it’s not more complicated than that.

“But I don’t know if he is a lawyer or the rest of the Premier League teams are lawyers so what I ask for is that – wait, it happened with Uefa. We believe that we have not done anything wrong so we go to an independent panel and we are going to wait.”

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A report from The Telegraph claims Man City’s Premier League rivals ‘intend to call for severe penalties which could throw English football into turmoil’ if they are found guilty.

The report says Premier League clubs ‘believe a points deduction would not be suitable’ as an ‘alternative’ punishment has been ‘proposed’.

‘Telegraph Sport has been told that teams in the Premier League believe a points deduction — even one that relegated them to the Championship — would not be suitable if City are found guilty of most or all of the charges facing them, given the scale of cheating that would have been proven.

If City were demoted one division, they would be immediate favourites to be promoted. One alternative proposed by a senior figure in the game would be for points deductions to be applied across multiple seasons to severely impact their ability to challenge for honours.

‘Another sanction available to the independent commission sitting in judgment on the case would be expelling City from the Premier League; something that would have major consequences.’