Leicester City were docked six points on Thursday evening after being found to have breached the Premier League’s financial rules.
The Foxes, now competing in the Championship, have dropped to 20th in England’s second tier and are only above the relegation zone on goal difference.
The club said in a statement: “It is with disappointment that Leicester City acknowledges the Independent Commission’s decision and the Club will use the time available to consider its next steps.
“While the Commission’s findings significantly reduced the unprecedented scale of the sanction originally sought by the Premier League, the recommendation remains disproportionate and does not adequately reflect the mitigating factors presented, the importance of which cannot be overstated given the potential impact on our sporting ambitions this season.
“We are now reviewing the decision in full and considering the options available to us. We remain committed to engaging constructively and ensuring that any action is fair, proportionate and determined through the appropriate processes.”
The question now on everyone’s lips in the aftermath of Leicester’s punishment is: If found guilty, what will Manchester City’s punishment be after they were charged with 115 rule breaches by the Premier League?
Why the Man City 115 Charges Case Has Taken So Long
It’s now been three years since the Premier League charged Man City with 115 rule breaches between 2009 and 2018. Football finance expert Kieran Maguire has given an update on the case and explained why a verdict has not yet been reached.
He said, per the Mirror: “If there are 115 charges against Man City, then Man City must put 115 defences, so that’s going to involve 100s and 1000s pieces of evidence. If you take a look at the cases against [Nottingham] Forest and Everton, which were relatively narrow and effectively one charge from the Premier League, there were tens of thousands of pieces of evidence submitted by the Premier League and the clubs during that particular hearing.
“Also, the charges against Man City are much more serious than those we saw, which resulted in points deductions for Everton and Forest. For City, it’s effectively an allegation of fraud – the Premier League alleges it received money from the owner and disguised it as sponsorship income.
“That’s a very serious offence. You have to have fairly overwhelming evidence of guilt because it’s a very significant allegation, and it’s taking a lot of time, as there are three people on the independent commission.
“They are not working together every day because they are incredibly successful in their own walks of life, so they don’t have a lot of time – and might just be getting together just a few times a month because they’ve got existing work commitments. Therefore, it’s a very slow process.
“I suspect that the Premier League is regretting making 115 charges; they could have chosen the ones they felt they had the strongest case for and, on the back of that, we would have had a verdict by now. “
Man City’s Likely Punishment Revealed
It is currently unknown how City will be punished if they are found guilty. Some have suggested that City could be thrown out of the Football League altogether. Maguire has rubbished that idea and suggested a heavy points deduction will be the most likely outcome.
he said: “If you take a look at the verdicts in the hearings against Everton and Forest, the one thing that became very clear was that if a football club has been involved in activities that, as a result, have given them an advantage on the pitch – i.e from overspending or hiding costs – these were the cases that were proven by the commissions against those clubs.
“They were both given a points deduction. Now, the charges against Man City cover a nine-year period, rather than just a single PSR calculation. Therefore, they would have to be a significant multiple-point deduction, adding a zero or more, so 40-60 points. Could that be viable? Yes, it could. Could it be more? Absolutely.
“But because the Premier League and the EFL are independent of one another, there’s no way the Premier League can say they’re going to relegate Man City to League Two because they’ve got no power over what happens in the EFL. From the EFL point of view, having Man City in the Championship would be a huge asset, with significant interest.
“I suspect that, because of the way the English football system is set up with the three governing bodies (the FA, the Premier League and the EFL), the Premier League cannot impose a punishment that the EFL must take on. So it has to be a points deduction – and if that results in relegation, then the EFL would be obliged to accept Man City into the Championship next season.”
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