Player walkout mooted if club found guilty on FFP charges

The football world is seemingly waiting with baited breath to see exactly what punishment, if any, is going to be metered out to Man City by the Premier League.

It’s alleged that the Cityzens have failed to provide the necessary information on various aspects of Financial Fair Play, and the 115 separate charges against them are damning.

Were the club to be found guilty on any or all of them, it would surely tarnish their incredible achievements over the past few years.

The treble win from last season is likely to be seen as the pinnacle, however, City are only one win away from a fourth successive English top-flight title – a feat that’s never been achieved before in over 100 years of history.

Man City players could leave the club

It would also be their sixth Premier League in the past seven years, all under Pep Guardiola. In the only season that they didn’t win it, they finished second, cementing the Catalan’s legacy at a third club.

There’s no doubt that Guardiola has changed the face of football in England, in the same way he did in Germany and Spain. For all that to be tainted would leave a really sour taste.

Former professional turned pundit, Paul Robinson, believes that if the charges are proven City face an unprecedented player walkout.

“It depends on what the sanctions are,” he said on Football Insider’s Inside Track podcast.

“We are at the mercy of the Premier League and the independent board of appeal.

“We don’t know who they are, what they are going to dream up or what punishment they are going to dish out.

“If you ask for a few points back, you might get them back. We make a joke out of it, but genuinely nobody knows.

“Until we get guidelines for punishments for certain offences, like 10 points for £10million or five points for £5million, we’re not going to know.

“They said every case is dealt on an individual basis and is looked at individually, so we’ll never be privy to that information.

“The only way I think you would see Manchester City players leaving is if the sanctions were that hard that they fell through the leagues. I can’t imagine many of that first-team squad wanting to play in the Championship, League One or League Two depending on what the punishment was.

“If the punishment was that severe and they went down to the Championship, there may be a case where they have a shut-door siege mentality where they say ‘Right, it’s us against the world, we’ll be back next season, we’ll go romp the Championship’.

“Or the squad and the team will fall apart. It just depends on how harsh the actual sanctions with regard to the future of a lot of the players.

“If they are in the Premier League, I don’t think you would see anybody leaving.”

Far from being the controversial meanderings of an out of touch ex-player, Robinson makes a genuine point.

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Every single player and member of staff involved at the club during the time of the alleged breaches will have their reputations stained. Perhaps irrevocably.

City have played some of the best football ever seen in the top flight of English football over recent years, and the great shame would be that all of that would be forgotten if history only remembers them for matters that allegedly occurred off the pitch.