Following a guilty verdict handed to Manchester City on 114 of the 115 charges the Premier League placed upon it, questions persist over possible sanctions, including the stripping of titles
Stan Collymore speaks to media prior to the Premier League match between West Ham United and Arsenal FC
Stan Collymore has discussed Manchester City's guilty verdict(Image: (Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images))
Former Liverpool star Stan Collymore believes that Manchester City must be stripped of its titles after being found guilty of 114 of the 115 charges brought upon it by the Premier League, but believes those titles can't be retroactively awarded.
It follows a seismic week of developments in the case, eight years on from the initial investigation by the league, three years on from the charges being announced, and nearly two years on from an independent panel looking over the case brought forward by both parties.
The charges included allegations that Man City, from 2009 until the investigation in 2018, had inaccurately reported its finances by inflating sponsorships and paying some staff off the books, which would then cause several breaches of financial rules along the way. That is then compounded by several charges relating to the inability to co-operate in the investigation period.
Man City denies any wrongdoing, and has appealed the verdict, which will now be overseen by another panel of independent people involved in legal proceedings.
While the club's CEO, Ferran Soriano, has suggested that the legal fight could take years, it could be wrapped up much sooner. If there is no overturning of the guilty verdict, then the process would move on to a sanctions panel.
At that point, an independent group would have to decide on a proportionate punishment for the breaches, with the powers for those sanctions seemingly endless.
The rules state that the Premier League can enact anything from a fine and points deduction to possible expulsion and the stripping of previous titles. The latter possibility has intrigued plenty of fans and former players, as the potential for re-allocation could see other clubs land the title for finishing second instead, including Liverpool during the 2009 to 2018 period.
Former Liverpool and England striker Stan Collymore
While plenty of opinions are flying around what should be done, former Reds ace Collymore believes that the stripping of titles should occur, but they shouldn't be re-allocated. He told Canadasportsbetting: "First of all, if any of the clubs I played for were found guilty of what Manchester City has been found guilty of - of course, still waiting for the appeal, but for now - I would take all trophies of those clubs, including my own, both for that period and the period after, as one leads to the other.
"Pending appeal, they could be proved to have cheated from 2009 to 2018 and built a club that is then super successful afterwards, so you would need to take the trophies they won after 2018 away from them again."
"You can't win in the following years without what happened in the years they allegedly cheated. That's just common sense. I would not give those titles to other clubs.
"I think you would have to give the years an asterisk, saying that no titles were won because of the Manchester City case, and then people would be able to search up the reason behind it in a history book one day."
It remains to be seen whether that is the decision that the sanctions panel would reach, but before that possibility, there would be several different scenarios that need to play out.
Lots of clubs will be watching on with interest to see what will follow for Man City, in what could be another messy saga.