Manchester City, what happens now? | Football Weekly
After reports broke that Manchester City have been found guilty of the vast majority of the charges against them, the question on everyone's lips is: 'How are they going to be punished?' Max Rushden is joined by Kieran Maguire, Barney Ronay, John Brewin and Barry Glendenning to break it all down. mancity charges premierleague englandfootball Watch the full podcast episode ► https://youtu.be/WFGjw1sOgjE Subscribe to Guardian Football ► https://www.youtube.com/@guardianfootball?subconfirmation=1 We want your feedback! If you had any thoughts on our coverage of the World Cup, please let us know here ► www.theguardian.com/YTWorldCupSurvey The Guardian publishes independent journalism, made possible by supporters. Contribute to The Guardian today ► https://support.theguardian.com/ Guardian Football Weekly: https://www.tiktok.com/@guardianfootballweekly https://www.instagram.com/guardianfootballweekly/ Website ► https://www.theguardian.com Facebook ► https://www.facebook.com/theguardian Bluesky ► https://bsky.app/profile/sport.theguardian.com Instagram ► https://www.instagram.com/guardiansport/ The Guardian on YouTube: The Guardian ► https://www.youtube.com/@theGuardian Football Weekly podcast ► https://www.youtube.com/@FootballWeeklyPodcast Guardian News ► https://www.youtube.com/@guardiannews Guardian Australia ► https://www.youtube.com/@GuardianAustralia Guardian Sport ► https://www.youtube.com/@guardiansport
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Okay, so the news broke on Friday that Man City had been found guilty of the vast majority of the 115 charges against them relating to breaches of Premier League financial regulation. Two years and 10 days since the hearing began, the news was leaked rather than official announcement for the Premier League that we're still waiting for. City's official response was first this maintaining their innocence um said the club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis that the Premier League board and executive would behave as an independent impartial and fair-minded regulator free from partisan influence on Saturday their chairman Caldun Alma Barrick said following Friday's media reporting many of you will have spent your evening answering questions and responding to messages from friends family and colleagues so have I here's what I said to my family the Premier League process still has a long way to fun and our confidence and intent in proving the club's innocent is just as strong as when this began. Kieran, can you as simply as possible, because I'm pretty sure most people listening will know, just run through what they've been found guilty or what we know they've been found guilty of. Three things. First of all, disguising money from the owner and pretending that it's sponsorship money. So that's artificially inflating your revenue. Secondly, paying people off book, which suppresses your costs. Both of those go into your PSR calculations. And thirdly, not complying with the Premier League investigation into their finances, >> right? And how much money have they spent that they shouldn't have spent or made that they shouldn't have made or wouldn't have made? It's not easy to quantify that. >> Yeah. What I did is that if you compare Manchester City's performance pre the takeover to Manchester City's performance post the takeover over the 9-year period, they've gone from an average of 14th to to second in in the table. And on that basis, they've probably generated somewhere in the region of 900 million to1 billion pounds of additional revenue in prize money, in appearance money, in uh UEFA competitions, in sponsorship bonuses and so on. Has that money been spent? Yes. Yes, it has. So, it's certainly been recycled in terms of transfer fees and wages, but there's an argument for say that had the takeover not taken place, we're probably talking the thick end of a billion pounds, >> right? And then do we know what the punishment could be? >> Well, I think we got to look at uh a precedent here as far as the Nottingham Forest and Everton cases. Uh both of those were a breach of the 105 million pound loss limit over three years. Um both started effectively with a six-point deduction and then you have uh extra extra points deducted depending on by how much you've exceeded the limit and then there's extra points deducted for what we refer to as aggravate aggravating factors i.e. have they helped the commission um e equally there has can be mitigating factors which help to reduce I think forest's claim forest punishment in particular if they've cooperated so looking at the charges I think there's four years in which city are deemed to be over the PSR limit so that means you start off with 24 points if they've been over the limit by a lot then you start to sort of add I think it works out as one one extra point per every x million pounds um and and we go from there. Now, we don't know what those x million pounds are. Aggravating factors, well, there's no love lost, is there, between the Premier League and City, so you would expect that to to top up the bill as well. >> What should the punishment be? Is a slightly different question. Barney, I I don't know what you think it should be. >> Can I just add something to what Kieran said. There's one thing that keeps bothering me about this is um like it's really important to keep explaining why this is a problem. Because on the face of it, spending your own money is essentially what's happened here. Sometimes if you look at this in isolation, it can be really hard to particularly maybe if you're a City fan and you've it's really hard to be objective about this. You've spent your own money. You've brought money into football and if you disagree with the rule that there should be any limit on that, it could seem absurd to you that this is such a big thing, even if you accept that there are rules and you play by them. But I think it's really important to separate out that what we've just described there. The point is that everybody's sticking to this rules. So what's the damage? You're spending your own money. You're not stealing money. But what you are stealing is other people's success. Other people's think about other people's lives being affected by this. Think about how many footballers have their lives have been affected by this. You've moved abroad. You've had to move your family. you haven't won something like connections, relationships, things you want to do, hopes, life chances, things you work all your life for. If everyone's sticking to these rules and you don't stick to them, you are affecting people's lives in quite a violent way. It's not simply this thing of, well, are these rules correct or not? They shouldn't be correct. That's a separate argument and a legitimate one. You can have a debate about that. Lots of people think, well, they're bringing money in. What's the problem? But that's not how it works. you've you've perverted the way people's jobs function and their lives function and also fans hopes things that you I've bought a Sky subscription for the last 12 years and it turns out I've been watching something that's not maybe really sport maybe I have a claim against Manchester City and of course the second thing is not reporting your financial not cooperating is deceit um you could call it fraud if you wanted to obviously there's an appeal it may not have happened but but those are the two there is real damage here. Um even though you may disagree with the rules, the point is other people, not everyone stuck to them. Um and in terms of punishment, um that's the really key issue because this could all actually be massively dampened down by an inadequate punishment. We don't know the outcome of this yet. I think just as a side issue because everyone one of the punishments I'd like to see would be a I would suggest a five-year ban on having any sponsors at all. Um because that's where the crime it's like a headmaster would do that. That's like saying you're going to learn from this. It's like doing lines. Grow your income organically. Um and that it would also test the owner's resolve to actually be involved in this. If you can't stick your name on it, what's the point? Um, so that would be one interesting punishment that speaks to the alleged or well no actual crime pending appeal and and Barry like within this there's this idea of you know if they got 100 points one season well then they'd go to the championship and come back up and would that be a big enough punishment or do you stagger the punishments? I don't know what you think the the the punishment should be. Well, I mean, how do you put a price on the mild irritation I felt at Wembley when Sunderland lost the 2014 League Cup final to Manchester City, it's unquantifiable. Um, but yeah, I I think if if that happened, if if City got a points deduction that was sufficient enough to ensure their relegation to the championship for a season, I think their most of their fans would quite enjoy a season in the Championship. And to be fair, you a lot of their fans should be, as you've said, Max, very angry at their owners. Um so I I do it does feel to me that it should be staggered uh that it should hurt them and hurt city for a long time. Um and I I wondering Kieran is should their owners be stripped of their fit and proper status and be forced to offload the club because surely this this proves that they are not fit and proper owners. Well, that would probably outside the remit of the Premier League, but it could be caught within the activities of the independent football regulator because it does have the power to force a sale of a club. Uh, which is more difficult for the Premier League to and I'd imagine that the Premier League would like to to wash its hands of that particular decision. um whether the regulator would want to get you know for the for your first big intray job that would be quite a scary one and also what what what they might say is well it happened before we were appointed so therefore we don't want to get involved every everybody doesn't want to make decisions here >> sure can can I just add um what Barry just said there like it's so fundamental to UK law the idea that you can say to someone, you're no longer allowed to own something. Um, you're effectively saying you have to you have to sell this club. That's um that's goes beyond the remit of that that's totally contrary to everything that UK law is based on and and would have a massive shockwave effect on so many parts of well parts of the economy that many people don't really don't really think are good. Like why why why is the London housing market basically this repository for international money? Because it's seen around the world as something safe. Like in this country, property doesn't get confiscated. It doesn't. It's safe. We have this incredibly ancient network of statute and common law that means you buy something here, it's basically yours. It's a safe place to rest money. what what football's talking about there and what the question Barry's just raised is so massively I mean I'd I'd be really interested to see what would happen but it's a vast it's a vast issue and it goes so far beyond saying no no we don't want you to buy in we we've decided you're not fit to own this to say you're no longer allowed to own it and you have to sell this huge piece of real estate and investment that you've poured so much money into that's kind of mindblowing but we we did have that with Sheffield Wednesday with Shanseri whilst the regulator wasn't in case there were there were lines of communication in London which which led to HMRC putting in the winding up order effectively forcing him to set or forcing him to put the club into administration through the back door. So there's no doubt that the the regulator will is happy to use those powers. It would just be such a huge decision though. >> That's not quite the same though is it that's applying the law that's saying if you can't pay this bill you're going to have to sell up. that that's not the same as saying because I don't think that um Abu Dhabi is going to have any problem paying a tax bill. If you're literally saying you are not allowed to own this property in Manchester, that's really fundamental and interesting. >> You're not fit to wear the shirt, but it's you're not fit to own the club. I wonder, John, with this staggered thing, you know, this idea that you'd say, right, you're 40 points off for every year that you know, you committed these um crimes would be in a footballing sense would be totally fascinating. I mean, I just don't imagine the players would hang around, but this idea that they'd have to get 80 points to get 40 points, you would sort of find it gripping. >> The punishment at this point just seems so opaque, doesn't it? because we we're we're still in this process of the Premier League have not actually commented, have they? They're refusing to comment the confidentiality of which Manchester City speak uh that there um the leak such as it was uh and the news published over the weekend that appears to be what Manchester City are kicking against. So, it feels a long way down the road. We don't know how long the process is going to take. Kieran may >> be more across that than we are. Uh but as regards punishment, there is a psychological punishment for the fans of the club. Now chatting to people over the weekend uh who are Manchester City fans, there is a state of disbelief. People I know that are rational people. People actually work within quite a similar sphere. You know, law enforcement working in the law cannot get beyond this idea that the system is unfair and that it is kicked against their club. The Red Cartel have produced this great conspiracy against their club. And I heard uh Nor Gallagher talk about uh how it's not going to take away any of what we achieved. you know, the the feelings that we had when Aguero scored or when Rodri scored the winner in the Champions League final. But I do wonder if a fan of Marseilles from say 1993 thinks back on those glory days and there's a certain point of that was tainted or a fan of Juventus from the the mid 2000s and what Abu Dhabi did was and and this is the the Abu Dhabi and shake man and uh Galun and all the people involved are accused of doing uh is going against the rules and if you don't have rules in sport and remember this is a sport then football is just what we see every year in that Darbisha village, you know, people just chasing after the ball. If there's no rules, you can just, you know, you just fight over the ball and that's it. And we talk all the time about rules with V and all the rest of it. And this is it's a separate issue in the fact it's a financial issue, but there were rules to follow. And the accusation, the verdict is they didn't follow them. Harland would be quite good in that Darbisha village, you know, once once once he's got it. I don't know what his heat map would be like. Um, Barley, you touched on this, but it is an interesting philosophical question about, you know, and John mentions, you know, you can't take the Agüero moment away from City fans over there and you can't, right? It was an amazing bit of football, but like how how should we view the last 15 years? What what you know, what are we meant to you know, does Georgie Thompson's I think Adam Hurry to does she have to revoice Premier League years? Well, what what it still happened? and we still watched it. >> Well, it's really hard to know what to think, isn't it? Cuz it's never happened before. I mean, I'm I'm a massive just a huge Lance Armstrong fan and you know, for me for me it was all real. It was all real. It is very difficult because it it's really hard to get your head around because it definitely happened like these these things were played out. It wasn't bribery on you know it wasn't bribery on the pitch. people weren't not trying and were allowing you to score goals. So, those players had to push themselves to the very limits of their physical capacities, had to do amazing acts of theater. They're still brilliant footballers. It still happened. Kevin De Bruyne still gave us these incredible moments and that's real. He didn't buy that, but but the point is it might not have been able to happen. It only really makes sense if you believe in um football as one team against another and in supporters and the entire culture of the game being real. If you just want to watch an exhibition, then it doesn't make any difference. If you just want to see um Messi endlessly scoring penalties and that's your entertainment, then who cares who's paying for that? But the point is if we actually believe in [snorts] the culture of football, which is people trying to build things and people having an equal chance and it being a test of your system and your skill within a framework of rules, then you've basically destroyed the whole thing. Like you you have you've destroyed what sport is because other people were sticking to the rules. Caveat, not everyone was sticking to the rules, but >> to the best of our ability, we were trying to make them do that. So, I can understand wanting to hang on to those moments. And the players as well must feel very strange about this because they we're talking about the arbitrary values you attach to the value of a human when you're buying their talent essentially, which is ridiculous. So, you could say, well, you shouldn't have been able to buy Omar Marmush because he is worth this much. Or is he? I don't know. Do you is I have no idea. We attach a value to that and then we say this is your this is your budget. It's sort of insane really when you break it down. But we still do have a market that decides those things. And other teams wanted him, couldn't buy him, maybe had a narrow escape because he was always supposed to play for Spurs. That's obvious. Um and and so we attach these arbitrary values and say that's the the set of rules. But in the end, we do that. And there are players you couldn't bid for, couldn't afford, couldn't do who would have improved your squad, and you might have won that game. You're winning leagues by one point. And then everyone gets to feel good about that and other people get to feel bad. So, we have to accept the spectacle and accept what our sport is or we have to say it means nothing and we're just watching a TV show. And that's what City breaking those rules turns it into. Like we know that we know they're good footballers. >> Yeah. That makes this podcast just a TV review podcast, doesn't it? So, um um Kieran, a couple of things like obviously lots of people ring up talk sport or five Live and say stick him in the National League, but the National League don't have to accept them, do they? I mean that is is that sort of points deduction is the only thing. They can't just say you're in League One for example. >> Premier League and the EFL are separate bodies. So you can't do that. But if you take a look at what happened with Leicester City's point seduction, that was a point seduction which was imposed by the Premier League and applied by the EFL. So whilst there is a dispute between the two bodies about financial distribution, there are lines of communication. So if the panel concludes the best thing is to have something similar to what we saw with Rangers and Juventus are you're going to be demoted so many divisions. It's then up for the EFL to make that decision and they're going to welcome Manchester City with open arms. Yeah, Manchester City is going to be the biggest story in town. So it will be fantastic for their clubs. So you you would see them probably taking on the recommendations. And can I ask about the future implications like the wave of lawsuits that could come from other teams, other players, their own players? What's the time frame? The time frame is appeal. We don't know how long that will be. And then do the clubs act in like is it like a class action or is it individual clubs each saying hey we didn't qualify? Tottenham didn't qualify for the Champions League six times because of this I think and obviously you know Stoke didn't win the FA Cup. Tony Pudis has talked about etc etc etc. What's can you envision what might happen? >> Well, again, we have precedent with Everton having to pay Burnley 35 million pounds in compensation. And when you talk to lawyers, they talk about a loss of a chance. Burnley lost the chance to play in the Premier League for an additional season when they were relegated and therefore they claimed compensation as a result. So therefore, you'd have to look at it through first of all the financial lens. clubs were denied the opportunity to be Premier League champions and the wealth that that brings. But most importantly from a financial point of view, it the ch it's the Champions League versus the Europa League where the difference is and you and you're talking realistically 40 million pounds a pop there for the clubs finishing fifth in those years in which City finished in the top four. So, so that's that's going to be one area. As far as players are concerned, again, you talk to players, the bonuses that you get uh for qualifying for the Champions League at the elite end, it's normally 25% if you're of your sort to a weekly pay packet. So for a player who's on 100 grand a week, that's 25 grand a week for that