Rival clubs want Manchester City’s punishment decided this season, and they feel relegation to the Championship would be insufficient, according to reports.
There’s been plenty of discussion around Manchester City this week, following the Premier League’s announcement that an independent commission has found the club guilty of all charges relating to serious breaches of the competition’s financial rules over a nine-season period.
The punishment for the guilty verdict hasn’t yet been decided, and the Premier League have confirmed that sanctions will be handed down in a further hearing with the commission.
City seemingly intend to appeal, and they continue to maintain their innocence, but the players currently employed by the club are starting to fear relegation is a serious possibility.
As for what City’s rivals want the punishment to be, Matt Hughes reports for The Guardian that a number of Premier League executives have told the publication that a points deduction to relegate the Manchester club to the Championship for a single season would be ‘insufficient’.
There’s clearly a desire for City to face longer-term consequences, as they’d presumably just bounce straight back up to the Premier League if they were only sent one step down the English football pyramid.
Meanwhile, Dan Roan reports for the BBC that senior football figures at other Premier League clubs want City’s punishment handed down before the end of the season, quoting one club official as saying: “It benefits everyone for this to be resolved as quickly as possible.”
The Premier League have introduced new rules this season, stating that an appeal hearing must be concluded within 12 weeks of the deadline for it to be submitted, with another 30 days for the panel to deliver its judgement – which would mean a decision by January 24th.
But it’s unclear whether those timeframes would apply to this case, given the rules were only introduced recently and the case has been ongoing for years.
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