Manchester City have taken their spending this year past £300 million, which includes a fair sum for the transfer of Sverre Nypan from Rosenborg. Indeed just including the deals done in this transfer window, they have spent around £130m Allowing for the players who have been sold (Couto and Wright for a total of around £27.5m) that means they have still lashed out over money without worrying about any sanction from the Premier League over its previous spending (on which there is still no report).
Compared with that Brentford have spent around £25m, Brighton £40m, Chelsea £90m, Everton £13jm, Liverpool £3m, ManU £62m, Tottenham Hots £46m, amnd West Ham £33m. The figures take into account players sold and of course they will change as the transfer window goes on. Figures are from the [Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2025/may/28/mens-transfer-window-summer-2025-premier-league-la-liga-bundesliga-serie-a-ligue-1), as of 0730 BST today.
Now perhaps we might be expecting Manchester City to be at or near the top of the spending table, except for one thing. The 115 cases against Manchester City for misdoings in previous transfer windows have still not been resolved. And there appears to be, what some see as a real arrogance in this round of spending as the club really is sticking two fingers up to the rest of the league. “You failed to stop our spending in the past, and just to show we don’t care, we are spending more now,” appears to be the message And we are only in June – they will probably be spending more in weeks to come.
What we all know is that a fine for Manchester City, if they ever are found guilty of anything will be as nothing to them, since it can be simply paid out of the funds that their owners make every few seconds from oil. So it would appear they are acting with what they feel is impunity. “The League needs us more than we need them” is the thinking.
And it looks on the surface as if the League has no idea what to do about this situation at all and so are letting it drift on in the hope that in the end everyone forgets about it. Certainly, the [Manchester Evening News](https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/new-man-city-115-charges-31597935) recently ran the story that unnamed “Legal experts reputedly believe that the Premier League charges case against Manchester City could continue for multiple years because of the potential for appeals.” This certainly looks like a City ploy, and is one we have mentioned a number of times.
But there is another way of looking at what appears to be a ludicrous situation. And that is that the League knows exactly what they are doing, and quite possibly have told Manchester City. Within this view, the vast majority of the Premier League will resign from the competition en masse and next summer join a new league into which Manchester City will not be invited.
Uefa will then be stuck with the situatioin in which it can recognise the New Premier League and so bring some of its most valued teams back into the fold, or it will refuse to recognise the League. In that case it will lose the top clubs in England from the Champions League, and their players from whatever whacky international competitions it and Fifa chose to run from next summer.
The alternative vision, that the clubs are just sitting and waiting for a decision, doesn’t ring true at all. These clubs are owned by highly experienced business people backed with the best financial consultants in the world. They know exactly what they are up to.
The losses from the conflict in England could be enormous and will raise the ire of clubs from France, Spain and Italy for whom the thought of playing in the European competitions without the top English clubs would be unacceptable. Players too will be less likely to sign for ManC despite the money on offer, if it means isolation.
Indeed one line of thought is that it is Uefa which is trying like mad to get the Premier League and Manchester City to sort out their differences but neither side is willing to budge. And of course, the force is with the clubs other than Manchester City, because ManC on its own has little to bring to the table – it is one club just like a handful of other powerful clubs such as Real Mad and Barcelona.
The question is, who is going to blink first. The Premier League knows that if it fines ManC such a modest amount that there really isn’t much ManC has to complain about, the rest of the league are likely to hand in their resignations. If they find ManC a lot that club will tie the League up in court for years to come.
Resignation by the mass of clubs from the Premier League is increasingly looking like the only way out, leaving ManC to set up a league with its own group clubs, and indeed to go and buy a few more in order to make up the numbers. Their supporters will attend games of course, but no one else will be very interested.