As we all watched Manchester City dismantle Liverpool in the second half at Anfield on Sunday, the joy at seeing three dazzling goals from Erling Haaland, Jeremy Doku and Rayan Cherki was overshadowed by gut-wrenching futility over a product that used to be the most important of the least important things, but is now almost entirely meaningless.
The best-case scenario will lead City to be cast out of the Premier League soon after the turn of the year. More likely they will appeal the sanction and continue on their merry way towards the end of the season. In any case, we’ve got months of this farce to endure.
That is unless the Premier League clubs take matters into their own hands. Here we run through the options of the virtuous 19 to punish City while the independent panel drag their feet.
Compensation
Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool have all formally reserved the right to seek compensation from Manchester City over a loss of earnings amid reports suggesting City’s nine years of cheating may have cost rivals a grand sum of £844m.
Spurs finished one place out of the Champions League qualification spots in four of the doping seasons, accounting for the highest loss of £120m.
But there are arguably more significant compensation packages due to relegated teams. Hull City could claim close to £100m for being relegated twice in that period. Wigan Athletic would dearly love £40m as they now sit bottom of League One.
The statute of limitations has passed but clubs can still seek restitution thanks to the Premier League rules.
A precedent was set in the summer when Everton were forced to pay Burnley £35m after the Clarets successfully argued that Everton’s breaches of financial fair play gave them an unfair sporting advantage that directly impacted their survival chances.
Thirty-five teams played in the Premier League with City between 2009 and 2018. If the embarrassment of a guilty verdict isn’t enough to send the Abu Dhabi owners packing, 35 lawsuits might just do the trick.
Vote for expulsion
A report following the Anfield farce claimed Premier League executives have been messaging each other, presumably in a a big WhatsApp group now purged of Khaldoon Al Mubarak and Ferran Soriano, discussing whether they should vote for their expulsion from the Premier League.
It’s more a ‘they won’t, will they’ rather than a ‘will they, won’t they’ scenario as the potential downsides far outweigh the unlikely upside.
Some see it as a ‘self-inflicted commercial disaster’ as TV deals could be affected while the Premier League loses some of its star appeal. Others maintain lucrative owner-level business relationships with Abu Dhabi. And many have been valuable trading and transfer partners with City over the last decade.
Fifteen of 19 votes is seen as incredibly unlikely for those reasons and more and the PL execs’ WhatsApp group now largely features Lisandro Martinez memes mocking Jason Wilcox along with a very one-sided Andrea Berta poll gauging transfer interest in Viktor Gyokeres.
Play the kids
Assuming all these City games are meaningless and the results are to be scrubbed from the Premier League record when they’re cast out before the end of the season, what’s the point in putting up a fight and risking injuries?
Playing the kids will reap the obvious reward of those academy stars experiencing the highest level of football against the very best players in Europe, but would also serve to embarrass and frustrate City by making a complete mockery of all their games.
And if City respond in kind and field their youth players, their rivals could go down through the age groups until a Premier League game features children who normally have to seek parental permission to watch an 8pm kick-off, let alone play in one.
At which point we suspect the Premier League would have to step in and suspend Manchester City pending the appeal.
Don’t play at all
Tricky because they would be risking their own quite severe sanctions as most of the great legal minds in the country would be required to sit on innumerable independent panels to decide on those punishments.
They would forfeit the game 3-0 – maybe not too bad a result against this City side – but that’s not a problem as, again, these fixtures won’t mean anything when all’s said and done. But they could then be hit with personal bans, fines, points deductions and even expulsion for refusing to play a scheduled Premier League game.
This would require the full buy-in of every club, working on the assumption that the Premier League can’t risk its own integrity by deducting points from everyone and instead take the path of least resistance and fire Manchester City directly into the sun as soon as possible.
Call them out
The closest we’ve come to a current player or manager taking aim at Manchester City for BEING FOUND GUILTY was Virgil van Dijk saying he will “definitely share my comments on it when it’s properly settled”. Ooooo, tune in next/in four months’ time.
Some have pleaded the fifth having been gagged by their clubs while the appeal process is ongoing; many agree that the most important thing is that it’s all sorted out quickly.
But what we need is some outrage; for big players and managers to call them out for bringing the game into disrepute: ‘Declan Rice hits out at Man City scumbags’; ‘Van Dijk wants Man City expelled’; ‘Mikel Arteta says he will throw Man City medals in the bin’. That sort of thing.
Ban the Man City executives
“What’s that, Mr Al Mubarak, your pass isn’t working? Yes, the club has decided that you’re not allowed to watch your team in our stadium; your diplomatic immunity doesn’t mean sh*t here, pal.
“**You can stare all you want, Mr Soriano**, you’re not getting in.”
Fan protests
We had built up the Anfield game in our minds to a point where no amount of mockery, ill-will and abuse aimed Manchester City’s way would match our hopes and expectations, but it felt like they got away with it nonetheless.
The Liverpool fans can’t have been happy with only chanting ‘cheats, cheats, cheats’ a few times and designing some Oasis-themed signs on Chat GPT. The rest of us certainly weren’t impressed.
What we had hoped would be a baying mob was a timid crowd even by usual, non-scandal standards.
We need protests before, during and after the games, shows of righteous indignation after 114 seconds, chanting that can’t be ignored win, lose or draw and perhaps best of all, owing to a refusal to acknowledge Manchester City as a viable opponent, no fans whatsoever.
Break their spirit
What we absolutely cannot have is Manchester City enjoying football that they should not be allowed to play and Premier League clubs that can’t air their opinions in public for fear of lawsuits should make their feelings clear in petty ways that are beyond legal recourse.
We’re talking cold showers, cranking up the A.C. in their dressing room, making the team bus park as far away as possible and giving Enzo Maresca a postage-stamp sized technical area. We want their experience of playing the football they shouldn’t be allowed to play to be as unpleasant as possible.
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Lisandro Martinez and Jason Wilcox.
Lisandro Martinez and Jason Wilcox.
Bayern Munich badge, Florian Wirtz and Liverpool badge - copyright F365
Bayern Munich badge, Florian Wirtz and Liverpool badge - copyright F365
Liverpool forward Bradley Barcola
Liverpool forward Bradley Barcola
Split image of Liverpool manager Andoni Iraola and Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso - copyright F365
Split image of Liverpool manager Andoni Iraola and Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso - copyright F365
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