After his conviction was revealed: newspaper drops a bombshell about stripping Manchester City of its titles
The past is stable but the future is at risk
The Athletic have delivered a fresh twist in the saga surrounding Manchester City's expected sanctions. Having already reported that the club was found guilty of the majority of the charges brought by the Premier League, the outlet has now turned to the question of what happens to the titles City won during the years covered by the case.
According to a report by journalist Oliver Kay, fans and players at Stoke City, Sunderland and Watford have started to wonder whether their clubs might be handed silverware retrospectively. Stoke lost to Manchester City in the 2011 FA Cup final, Sunderland in the 2014 League Cup final, and Watford in the 2019 FA Cup final.
The report carried a clear surprise. Kay confirmed that "very few people within Premier League circles expect the titles to be stripped and redistributed".
He added that the prevailing view since the case began was that any sanctions, should City be found guilty, would look to the future rather than the past. Stripping the trophies the club won over recent years and reawarding them to others does not, then, appear to be the likely outcome.
These details come just days after The Athletic revealed the verdict. The newspaper was first to report that the independent commission had found Manchester City guilty of a large number of the breaches alleged by the Premier League.
Kay stressed, though, that the sanctions must be substantial. What was the point of a process lasting years, he asked, if it ends with a punishment that fails to match the magnitude of the case?
Huge questions about the integrity of the Premier League over recent years have already been raised by the case, especially now that the commission has found City guilty of more than 100 breaches.
By waging this long legal battle, Kay believes, the Premier League has placed itself in direct confrontation with one of its biggest clubs. That makes the final punishment enormously important to the competition's image and credibility.
Fans of the clubs that lost those finals may be waiting anxiously, but The Athletic's report suggests rewriting the history of the competition is not on the cards.
The case, then, may end with strong sanctions against Manchester City and no stripping of the titles won in past seasons. The final shape of the punishment, and everything that flows from it, rests on the decision still to come.
