The wildest Man City pundit punishment suggestions ranging from League Two to scrapping the Premier League

In the infinite content world of modern football media, a three-week international break would have your favourite/least-hated pundits debating topics like whether Harry Kane is better than Peter Shilton, why Bruno Fernandes wouldn’t get into any other Manchester United side and who really is better: Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo?

Thank the footballing gods then that the Premier League dropped its verdict on Manchester City, giving pundits 115 new things to talk about.

The Premier League’s smackdown of ‘Sham’ City provided something new and exciting for everyone to talk about. We know what happens when a team loses a game, we know what happens when a team gets relegated, we even know what happens when a team goes out of business but City’s cheating is something new and has therefore allowed every pundit to have their say on what exactly should happen, raging from the very lenient to the ultra-aggressive.

Predictably, it all went very tribal. Former City man Joe Hart leapt to the defence of the club and said he believed chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak’s claims that the club were innocent. Presumably he reckons OJ didn’t do it either.

Another ex-City man Micah Richards has been done dirty by a graphic going round social media in which it claims City should get no punishment. In reality, Richards gave no suggestion on punishments at all but did say “no one’s taking my Premier League title away”. To be fair to him, Lance Armstrong still has his seven yellow jerseys hung up in his house but we all know what really happened.

Now every criminal organisation needs foot soldiers out on the street to do the dirty work and for a football club, those are the fans you see on social media acting like they are blood relatives of the owners. I will be honest and say I have hobbies and a family so I could not tell you their names but Sky like to get them in a studio once in a while as somehow a view of the real fan, despite these people being unlike anyone you’ve ever met.

READ: Man City fans should remember that ‘supporting your club’ has never had an implied ‘blindly’

Their regulars apparently ducked the invite, leading to a new person on the panel who we were supposed to be taking seriously despite the fact he was called ‘Nobbins’. To be fair to Nobbins he was not so unreasonable and instead said punishment could range from the worst-case scenario of the club ceasing to exist and the best case of a slap on the wrist. What he suggested as reasonable was dropping to League Two or non-league.

Stuart Pearce was also on that show and had a more philosophical take on everything, saying he hoped that if City did get a fine, it went into grassroots football, which feels a bit like doing community service for a murder sentence.

Not everyone who was once associated with City was so forgiving. David Bernstein, who was chairman from 1998 to 2003, said on talkSPORT that it was “beyond awful” and said the directors of the club, including the man who does not blink – Ferran Soriano – had to step down. He went on to say “I don’t think the present management can credibly continue.”

Moving away from the City eco-sphere and the knives very much came out.

Roy Keane, who once said Brian Clough was the best manager he worked under, took some lines from his old master’s playbooks and told City players to “throw your medals in the bin”.

“If I was a player, I’d be 100% sticking those medals in the bin. Of course you would, it’s cheating,” he said almost in direct reply to Richards.

“They won it on the pitch because cheating was going on. They knew it would hurt a lot of people, but they’ve still done it.”

Gary Neville held back from saying City should be stripped of their titles, instead saying, “The achievements themselves are tarnished.” Unrelated but did you know that in 2023, Neville said that one in five of his Manchester properties had been bought by UAE investors?

If the ubiquitous Neville was pulling his punches, Jamie Carragher, who always seemed to have a bee in his bonnet when it came to City, was not. The former Liverpool defender went in two-footed and then went back for more.

Carragher initially wanted the nuclear option of all titles removed in that period and to also boot the owners out of football.

“I do think Manchester City’s titles they’ve won in this time, or trophies, should be taken off their list,” Carragher told Sky Sports, who would have to rename a lot of Premier League years.

“For me this is all about the owners, the people who are at the top of the club.

“We talk about a fit and proper test for owners. What they’ve done for 10 years – and left this stain that will be there for the next 10 years – it starts because they don’t like the word no.

“They have so much power and finance behind them, nobody ever tells them no. Until they move away from the club, I don’t know how this stain is removed from the club.”

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That’s what Carragher said at the start of October but this week, he had changed his opinion to include a points deduction spread over a few seasons.

“If the people talk about 80 points or 100 points, but that’s just over one season that gets you relegated and then you come back again.

“But I think, because this has gone on for so long, I do think the punishment should be over a number of years, three to five years, and then players would move on.”

But perhaps the harshest punishment came from Wayne Rooney who, while sparing the players any such punishment, wanted to absolutely throw the book at the club.

The Manchester United top scorer went against the grain and suggested not to strip the titles as the players had earned it but then to “put them in the lowest league ⁠they can go in and then put restrictions on them in terms of how much money they can spend for the next three or four seasons.”

Technically, league football ends at League Two but the EFL may not opt to admit them and so then City would be looking at non-league and beyond.

And finally, it would not be a football debate if not for some outlandish comments spewed on talkSPORT and filling that role as usual is Simon Jordan. He suggested that as the result of a thorough investigation by the Premier League that found a guilty verdict, the Premier League should be abolished.

“Really, the only way to evolve this game is to disband the Premier League, recreate it with a whole new set of rules that are fit for purpose rather than tacking on rules that have existed for 125 years and keep trying to finesse them to meet ownership models that are so much more sophisticated now.”

Probably the kind of advice you’d expect from someone who took Crystal Palace into administration.

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