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Posted

Based on what's been said, (probably not by Man.City) is it unusual that they are appealing the decision, rather than the sanctions? In most other scenarios, (e.g. like ours) wasn't the decision accepted but the sanctions appealed? Is that because normally the decision and sanctions happen together? Could we end up with an even more protracted situation, with two appeals? City appeal the outcome. Let's assume that fails, and sanctions are placed on them. Do they then launch a second appeal in relation to the level of the sanctions?

Posted
2 hours ago, Chelmofox said:

Both things can be true though, can't they. 

 

The financial and football decisions this club have made have been completely scandalous. Our fall from grace has been horrific, and we will be feeling it for a long, long time. We should have been able to deal with coming 5th a few times, and at very worst be a mid table PL side.

 

But lots of clubs (not just us) have lost out a lot of revenue because of this.  We will never know what the impact would have been to getting 4th in that first season we came 5th under Rodgers. Would we have kicked on stronger, as we had some great players who desperately wanted Champions Lg football and were pretty marketable, and we had a manager that was desperate to be managing at that level? Would we have purchased better players and been able to refresh the squad how Rodgers wanted to? Or, would we have signed the likes of Vestergaard / Bertrand / Soumare and Daka anyway and we would have just crumbled sooner. 

 

We will never know, but just because Top / Rudkin are pathetic doesnt meant that the means to missing out wasnt scandalous. A huge amount of revenue was lost because of it, and in football once the financial wheels start to fall off, its very, very difficult to steady the ship.

I mean yeah, I essentially said as much. But I think the narrative that we’d not have fallen on difficult times had we even qualified for the Champions League is simplistic and gives the actions of the club a pass. As others have said, it would have just been more revenue to waste. We had so many millions of revenue come through the club as it is already and look at us. 
 

We won the league and qualified for the CL and had an awful window and wasting a ton. 
 

I guess I see it as claiming out of principle which is fine, rather than it having materially changed the direction of our club.

Posted
10 minutes ago, Twitcher said:

Based on what's been said, (probably not by Man.City) is it unusual that they are appealing the decision, rather than the sanctions? In most other scenarios, (e.g. like ours) wasn't the decision accepted but the sanctions appealed? Is that because normally the decision and sanctions happen together? Could we end up with an even more protracted situation, with two appeals? City appeal the outcome. Let's assume that fails, and sanctions are placed on them. Do they then launch a second appeal in relation to the level of the sanctions?

They’ll do both.

 

Continue to tie it up in red tape forever. 
 

They can afford to do it so they will.

  • Like 1
Posted

https://www.mancity.com/news/club/a-letter-from-the-chairman-to-manchester-city-fans-63926027

 

I have been part of this Club for 18 years. I have had the privilege to stand with you in the Etihad, at Wembley, and in Istanbul. This Club matters to me, and you have shown and told me – time and time again - how much Manchester City matters to you. This is why I am writing to you today. 

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 run, and our confidence and intent in proving the Club’s innocence is just as strong as when this began.

There are so many things that I would like to be able to share with you to help you understand why we feel so confident in our position. But the strict confidentiality of the legal process and our determination to respect it means I cannot do that at the moment. Even this letter underwent several legal checks to make sure it complies.

I ask you to please carefully read the statement below, which we gave on Friday, and the statement we issued in February 2023 (also below). Every word matters and holds true.

 
While some people have been quick to reach their own conclusions, and there is so much noise swirling around us, nothing has changed. We have faced challenges together before and have prevailed. There remain many who want to undermine the momentum of our Club. We will not give them that opportunity.

We have some exciting moments to look forward to after this international break.  We travel to Anfield in a fortnight, and then host Paris St Germain in the Champions League back at Etihad Stadium - moments that give us an opportunity to celebrate the strength of the Manchester City family.

Thank you, as always, for your constant support.

Khaldoon Al Mubarak

Chairman

Manchester City Football Club

Club Statement Friday 25th September 2026

The Premier League process remains ongoing, with significant elements to be completed, and subject to strict confidentiality.  As such Manchester City FC’s position remains consistent with the Club’s statement of February 2023.

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.

Club Statement February 2023

Manchester City FC is surprised by the issuing of these alleged breaches of the Premier League Rules, particularly given the extensive engagement and vast amount of detailed materials that the EPL has been provided with.

The Club welcomes the review of this matter by an independent Commission, to impartially consider the comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of its position.

As such we look forward to this matter being put to rest once and for all.

Posted
On 25/09/2026 at 14:59, Rubbersoul said:

Shirley they have to be sent down the divisions? 

She’s got bar experience, not being on the panel for the independent football regulator. Phil

  • Haha 2
Posted (edited)
4 hours ago, Pliskin said:

I agree….. 

nah, this will drag on for another 5-10 years. They will appeal the decision, then if they lost that, they will appeal the sanction.

 

So much time will have passed that they’ll then brush it under the carpet.

 

And in the meantime, they’ll argue that all of the other legal action taken against them by other clubs should be paused pending the final outcome.


despite the media clamour, this is gonna take years.

Edited by wurmer
Posted
1 hour ago, Qwerty said:

They’re going to appeal, so it’s not over yet.  I strongly suspect it’ll be overruled on appeal, or at least diminished, so their punishment ends up being minimal. 

 

Dunno where to start with that. One, I have no idea why you would think that other than pure cynicism. 

 

And a successful appeal would mean a verdict of not guilty, you can't "get away" with something you are not guilty of by virtue of having not done it. 

Posted
11 minutes ago, howiemark said:

Just got AI to remove Man City's results:

 

Vacating Manchester City’s records would have created an estimated financial swing for Leicester City of between £170 million and £220 million+.

While the direct merit payments during the initial breach period (2009–2018) are relatively modest, the downstream consequences of Manchester City occupying Champions League spots and Premier League places directly triggered Leicester’s multi-year financial crisis, culminating in their 2022–23 relegation and Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) charges. 

1.      Direct Merit Payments: ~£6.3m (2014–2018)

Leicester spent four seasons in the top flight during the official breach period. Moving up one position each year (excluding their 2015–16 title-winning season) yields an immediate prize money uplift:

SeasonActual FinishPosition Without Man CityMerit Payment Difference

2014–1514th (41 pts)13th+~£2.0m

2015–161st (81 pts)1st (Champions)£0 (City finished 4th)

2016–1712th (44 pts)11th+~£2.1m

2017–189th (47 pts)8th+~£2.2m

Total+~£6.3m

2. The Champions League Heartbreaks: ~£70m – £90m (2019–20 & 2020–21)

This was the pivotal turning point in Leicester's modern history. In back-to-back seasons under Brendan Rodgers, Leicester spent almost the entire campaign inside the top four, only to slip to 5th on the final day:

  • 2019–20: Leicester finished 5th (62 pts); Manchester City finished 2nd (81 pts). (UEFA initially banned City from European competition for two years in February 2020, which would have passed the Champions League spot to 5th-place Leicester, before the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned the ban in July 2020).
  • 2020–21: Leicester finished 5th (66 pts); Manchester City won the league (86 pts). Without City, Leicester finishes 4th ahead of West Ham.

The Revenue Gap: UCL vs. Europa League

  • Champions League Group Stage: Guaranteed base participation, UEFA coefficient pool, and UK television pool pay out £50m – £75m+ per club before matchday revenue (Leicester earned roughly £70m from their 2016–17 UCL quarter-final run).
  • Europa League Reality: Leicester earned approximately £13m in 2020–21 (Round of 32 exit) and £15m in 2021–22.
  • The Financial Deficit: Missing the Champions League twice cost Leicester an estimated £70m to £90m in UEFA distributions alone. Crucially, the lack of UCL revenues caused their wage-to-turnover ratio to balloon to 85%, which triggered an emergency spending freeze.

3. Relegation Avoidance and the PSR Crisis: ~£100m – £130m+ (2022–23)

In 2022–23, Leicester City finished 18th with 34 points, two points behind Everton (36 points).

Under the standard regulatory model where Manchester City are disqualified or demoted to 20th, 18th place survives.

Avoiding relegation would have spared Leicester catastrophic balance-sheet damage:

  • Turnover Drop: In Leicester’s official 2022–23 accounts, the club posted an £89.7m loss. In the Championship (2023–24), even with £44m in parachute payments, club turnover collapsed from £177.3m down to £105.3m—an immediate £72m annual revenue loss.
  • Distressed Player Fire-Sales: Because of the drop into the Championship and the need to meet PSR requirements, Leicester lost significant bargaining power:
    • James Maddison was sold to Tottenham for £40m (widely valued above £60m before relegation).
    • Harvey Barnes was sold to Newcastle for £38m.
    • Youri Tielemans, Çağlar Söyüncü, Ayoze Pérez, and Daniel Amartey walked away on free transfers after contract extension talks collapsed amidst the relegation fight.
  • PSR Sanctions: The 2022–23 losses resulted in a formal Premier League PSR charge, an EFL transfer embargo, and ongoing legal defense costs.

Estimated Total Financial Impact

Impact Category

 

Affected Seasons

 

Conservative Financial Swing

 

Primary Driver

 

Direct Merit Payments

2014–18

+£6.3m

Higher PL finishing spots (+1 place each year).

Lost Champions League Revenue

2020–22

+£70m – £90m

Upgraded from Europa League to UCL group stages.

Avoided Relegation Revenue Cliff

2023–24

+£72m

Retaining top-flight broadcast and sponsorship baseline.

Preserved Player Asset Equity

2023

+£30m – £45m

Avoiding cut-price sales and squad contract expiries.

Estimated Aggregate Impact

£178m – £213m+

The indirect chain reaction was decisive. Had Leicester collected an additional ~£80m in Champions League money between 2020 and 2022, they would not have entered the summer 2022 transfer window with an emergency spending freeze (signing only Wout Faes). That squad stagnation led directly to their poor run of form, the sacking of Brendan Rodgers, and the relegation that cost the club over £100m in a single year. 

 

AI is good innit?

Posted
40 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

So they have been found guilty of breaking P & S 7 times.

 

Forest and Everton both got points deductions for 1.

 

If you are those clubs are going to take legal action against the PL if they don't deal with Man City in the same way.

I completely agree. 
It’s just you can guarantee that it’ll be one rule for those teams and a completely different outcome for Man City. 

  • Like 1
Posted
25 minutes ago, LCFCJohn said:

I mean yeah, I essentially said as much. But I think the narrative that we’d not have fallen on difficult times had we even qualified for the Champions League is simplistic and gives the actions of the club a pass. As others have said, it would have just been more revenue to waste. We had so many millions of revenue come through the club as it is already and look at us. 
 

We won the league and qualified for the CL and had an awful window and wasting a ton. 
 

I guess I see it as claiming out of principle which is fine, rather than it having materially changed the direction of our club.

From a legal perspective, our case is a tricky one, even if it seems more compelling to me.

 

By law you can claim for historical advantages (i.e. what they did up to 2018 was still helping them in 2020, which I'm sure it was) but from the articles I've read, courts tend to be wary of these 'downstream' cases. It'll be hard to prove that Man City wouldn't have still been a CL club by 2020 and 2021 without the cheating. If everyone was still as feverishly litigious as they have been in recent years (and from what I understand that's calmed a little) then, of course, if we went up this season then L1 clubs could potentially beat us with that stick too.

 

It may be wrong or right, but I think our very limited legal prospects are an indication - to an extent - of the degree to which Man City are responsible for our woes, as opposed to mismanagement by King Power. The former had an effect. The latter was obviously, by some distance, the primary cause. In the eyes of the law especially, but also in reality.

  • Thanks 1
Posted
3 hours ago, ealingfox said:

 

Of course they apply and it matters, it's just more difficult to directly link it to the consequences for us later down the line because you start getting into counterfactuals.

 

We'd still have had Top and Rudkin at the wheel all this time. Rodgers would have been manager for the additional CL opportunities and his European record is tragic so we wouldn't have made much of them.


indeed. 
 

Highly annoying watching people blame external factors on what was a complete internal meltdown. 

  • Like 1
Posted
45 minutes ago, wurmer said:

nah, this will drag on for another 5-10 years. They will appeal the decision, then if they lost that, they will appeal the sanction.

 

So much time will have passed that they’ll then brush it under the carpet.

 

And in the meantime, they’ll argue that all of the other legal action taken against them by other clubs should be paused pending the final outcome.


despite the media clamour, this is gonna take years.

I think you’re right…. It will take years for the appeal to just go through. They will ultimately get away with it. 

Posted
42 minutes ago, inckley fox said:

From a legal perspective, our case is a tricky one, even if it seems more compelling to me.

 

By law you can claim for historical advantages (i.e. what they did up to 2018 was still helping them in 2020, which I'm sure it was) but from the articles I've read, courts tend to be wary of these 'downstream' cases. It'll be hard to prove that Man City wouldn't have still been a CL club by 2020 and 2021 without the cheating. If everyone was still as feverishly litigious as they have been in recent years (and from what I understand that's calmed a little) then, of course, if we went up this season then L1 clubs could potentially beat us with that stick too.

 

It may be wrong or right, but I think our very limited legal prospects are an indication - to an extent - of the degree to which Man City are responsible for our woes, as opposed to mismanagement by King Power. The former had an effect. The latter was obviously, by some distance, the primary cause. In the eyes of the law especially, but also in reality.

What it allowed them to do was raise their turnover massively in a way that's almost impossible under the rules. Once it was £500m+ there was a lot more wiggle room under many of the psr rules of the time.

 

Newcastle and villa and now Everton with similarly wealthy owners are the example of what man city should not have been able to do.

Posted
45 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Everton were guilty of two charges and were docked 6 pts.

 

Using the same scale, Man City should be docked 342 pts.

Everton had there’s reduced for cooperation didn’t they? Man City surely would have no chance of getting a cooperation reduction!

Posted
55 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Everton were guilty of two charges and were docked 6 pts.

 

Using the same scale, Man City should be docked 342 pts.

 

9 minutes ago, KansasFox said:

Everton had there’s reduced for cooperation didn’t they? Man City surely would have no chance of getting a cooperation reduction!

Originally 10 points reduced to 6. 

 

In the wrong season which meant Everton stayed up at our expense, of course. 

 

This is what they were attempting to deduct from us:

 

Posted
1 hour ago, kenny said:

What it allowed them to do was raise their turnover massively in a way that's almost impossible under the rules. Once it was £500m+ there was a lot more wiggle room under many of the psr rules of the time.

 

Newcastle and villa and now Everton with similarly wealthy owners are the example of what man city should not have been able to do.

Completely. I wouldn't argue with any of that for a second.

Posted
2 hours ago, howiemark said:

Just got AI to remove Man City's results:

 

Vacating Manchester City’s records would have created an estimated financial swing for Leicester City of between £170 million and £220 million+.

While the direct merit payments during the initial breach period (2009–2018) are relatively modest, the downstream consequences of Manchester City occupying Champions League spots and Premier League places directly triggered Leicester’s multi-year financial crisis, culminating in their 2022–23 relegation and Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) charges. 

1.      Direct Merit Payments: ~£6.3m (2014–2018)

Leicester spent four seasons in the top flight during the official breach period. Moving up one position each year (excluding their 2015–16 title-winning season) yields an immediate prize money uplift:

SeasonActual FinishPosition Without Man CityMerit Payment Difference

2014–1514th (41 pts)13th+~£2.0m

2015–161st (81 pts)1st (Champions)£0 (City finished 4th)

2016–1712th (44 pts)11th+~£2.1m

2017–189th (47 pts)8th+~£2.2m

Total+~£6.3m

2. The Champions League Heartbreaks: ~£70m – £90m (2019–20 & 2020–21)

This was the pivotal turning point in Leicester's modern history. In back-to-back seasons under Brendan Rodgers, Leicester spent almost the entire campaign inside the top four, only to slip to 5th on the final day:

  • 2019–20: Leicester finished 5th (62 pts); Manchester City finished 2nd (81 pts). (UEFA initially banned City from European competition for two years in February 2020, which would have passed the Champions League spot to 5th-place Leicester, before the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned the ban in July 2020).
  • 2020–21: Leicester finished 5th (66 pts); Manchester City won the league (86 pts). Without City, Leicester finishes 4th ahead of West Ham.

The Revenue Gap: UCL vs. Europa League

  • Champions League Group Stage: Guaranteed base participation, UEFA coefficient pool, and UK television pool pay out £50m – £75m+ per club before matchday revenue (Leicester earned roughly £70m from their 2016–17 UCL quarter-final run).
  • Europa League Reality: Leicester earned approximately £13m in 2020–21 (Round of 32 exit) and £15m in 2021–22.
  • The Financial Deficit: Missing the Champions League twice cost Leicester an estimated £70m to £90m in UEFA distributions alone. Crucially, the lack of UCL revenues caused their wage-to-turnover ratio to balloon to 85%, which triggered an emergency spending freeze.

3. Relegation Avoidance and the PSR Crisis: ~£100m – £130m+ (2022–23)

In 2022–23, Leicester City finished 18th with 34 points, two points behind Everton (36 points).

Under the standard regulatory model where Manchester City are disqualified or demoted to 20th, 18th place survives.

Avoiding relegation would have spared Leicester catastrophic balance-sheet damage:

  • Turnover Drop: In Leicester’s official 2022–23 accounts, the club posted an £89.7m loss. In the Championship (2023–24), even with £44m in parachute payments, club turnover collapsed from £177.3m down to £105.3m—an immediate £72m annual revenue loss.
  • Distressed Player Fire-Sales: Because of the drop into the Championship and the need to meet PSR requirements, Leicester lost significant bargaining power:
    • James Maddison was sold to Tottenham for £40m (widely valued above £60m before relegation).
    • Harvey Barnes was sold to Newcastle for £38m.
    • Youri Tielemans, Çağlar Söyüncü, Ayoze Pérez, and Daniel Amartey walked away on free transfers after contract extension talks collapsed amidst the relegation fight.
  • PSR Sanctions: The 2022–23 losses resulted in a formal Premier League PSR charge, an EFL transfer embargo, and ongoing legal defense costs.

Estimated Total Financial Impact

Impact Category

 

Affected Seasons

 

Conservative Financial Swing

 

Primary Driver

 

Direct Merit Payments

2014–18

+£6.3m

Higher PL finishing spots (+1 place each year).

Lost Champions League Revenue

2020–22

+£70m – £90m

Upgraded from Europa League to UCL group stages.

Avoided Relegation Revenue Cliff

2023–24

+£72m

Retaining top-flight broadcast and sponsorship baseline.

Preserved Player Asset Equity

2023

+£30m – £45m

Avoiding cut-price sales and squad contract expiries.

Estimated Aggregate Impact

£178m – £213m+

The indirect chain reaction was decisive. Had Leicester collected an additional ~£80m in Champions League money between 2020 and 2022, they would not have entered the summer 2022 transfer window with an emergency spending freeze (signing only Wout Faes). That squad stagnation led directly to their poor run of form, the sacking of Brendan Rodgers, and the relegation that cost the club over £100m in a single year. 

 

Rudkins definitely copying and pasting this in an email to Top titled “My initial impact assessment of Man City situation”.

  • Haha 1
Posted
15 minutes ago, Samilktray said:

They’ll be distraught with this am sure 

They should be its how true football fans feel .. or should feel 

 

Unless you endorse cheats 

 

 

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