The sheer scale of Manchester City’s duplicity should come with long-lasting consequences, several senior Premier League and English Football League (EFL) figures have told The i Paper.
At this stage, even legal experts cannot predict what City’s punishment for being found guilty of 114 charges will be.
And with expulsion from the Premier League one potential punishment on the table, senior EFL executives The i Paper spoke to are divided on whether City should be accepted into the lower leagues at all.
Could City face expulsion from Premier League?
Under Section W, Rule 54 of the Premier League’s handbook, City are facing a punishment ranging from a reprimand to expulsion.
Those exasperated most by City’s conduct are calling for the latter: “They should go all the way to the bottom of the pyramid,” one EFL source tells The i Paper. Others believe such severity is unlikely, given the wider issues – lost jobs, social and community aftershocks – at play.
A dramatic points deduction, plus an additional seismic penalty, such as a three-year transfer ban, is much more feasible. Stripping of titles is not out of the question.
There is precedent for a British club being sent all the way to the bottom of the footballing pyramid, after Rangers were forced to start again in 2012 after being liquidated. While the City case is unique, the fact there is history of such an expulsion will keep everyone at the Etihad on tenterhooks in the coming months.
An expulsion into a league lower than the Championship remains a possibility, too, even if that is an unlikely eventuality, several sources said.
The Premier League does not have the power to simply place City in another division. It would go to a vote between the EFL clubs and the FA, regarding whether they will be accepted at all, and what level City will play.
Several legal sources said that sanctions could come before the end of the current season, earlier than we first thought. It is also understood that the possibility of City and the Premier League settling out of court, having agreed a more acceptable sentence, is the “most likely outcome”.
Will EFL clubs accept City in?
As expected, with so much to unpack, the feedback from numerous senior figures is mixed.
“I don’t know all the details, but if they are guilty of all this, at the end of the day, depending on how passionately you believe in it, the integrity of the game is at stake,” one EFL club executive tells The i Paper.
“Why should we be forced to play alongside City as their punishment? Does it make it okay for League One clubs to cheat, if they are playing against Manchester City for points?
“You have to earn your place in any league in English football. Why should City be placed anywhere?”
With losses in League One at an all-time high, so much so that new financial regulations have been drafted in this term to ensure clubs do not slip perilously close to extinction, others have a more practical view.
“We are seeing what having a giant of a club like Leicester City in League One this season does for interest,” another senior EFL executive tells The i Paper. “We sold out straight away for that. Imagine the demand for City tickets.
“We have never made losses like this before. We cannot keep going like this, so anything that helps that is a bonus. The chance to go up against a giant like City would get more eyes on the league, attract investors, and get us gate receipts we wouldn’t normally get.”
What else are EFL clubs are saying?
While there are a growing number of voices calling for the most severe punishments, what is lost amid the vitriolic salivating at the possible City ramifications is the knock-on effects demotion down the leagues could have.
While City would need to dramatically downsize, meaning jobs would be lost and community projects get dropped at the club itself, EFL sides could face a problem when it comes to recruitment, at all levels.
“Local clubs thrive off getting players who drop out of City’s academy, who have had a fantastic footballing upbringing there,” a source close to the youth recruitment process in Manchester tells The i Paper. “If they went down the divisions, so many clubs would lose that.
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“There might be a lot of talent immediately available, if City have to clear the decks. But their academy is the leading producer of talent in the country. They know how to nurture talent – that gets lost if they are running a League Two academy.”
For now, it is a matter of wait and see. Others The i Paper spoke to did not want to comment, as not enough information is available, and the appeal process is still to be heard.
Still, the possibility of having what is now a global footballing behemoth playing in the lower tiers has everyone at least considering the possibility of a dramatically different footballing landscape, one way or another.