Gary Neville reveals huge FFP points deduction Man City would ‘snap your hand off’ for
Manchester City would ‘snap your hand off’ for a massive deduction of 60 points if it meant their owners could retain control of the club, Gary Neville has claimed.
Man City have been found guilty of the vast majority of charges in their Financial Fair Play (FFP) case, with an independent commission finding that the club used ‘sham’ contracts with commercial partners to save a whopping £900million between 2009 and 2018. City have appealed the verdict, calling it ‘unsafe’ and simply ‘opinion’.
But the Cityzens could be hit by sanctions before the result of that appeal, as their Premier League rivals want punishment to start this season.
City are at serious risk of having their titles stripped. They could also face a transfer ban, fine, points deduction, expulsion from the Premier League, or having their owners removed.
In an interview with Sky Sports, Neville cast huge doubt over whether City’s majority owners, the Abu Dhabi United Group, can continue at the club.
“It’s hard to see how the Man City owners can comply with the owners’ and directors’ test in this country if the verdict remains,” he said.
“The reality is, because of improper owners of clubs, there are a lot stricter rules in place. It’ll be difficult for the Man City owners to retain their status.
“Clubs are protected assets, community assets, because of the meaning of them to fans and people of a city, so owners have to comply with the rules and laws set out in the test.
“The only appropriate punishment is to apply the owners’ and directors’ test, firstly, and then to look at the achievements over the period and determine whether they should still stand.
“Those two things would have the most direct consequence on English football. If I was Man City, I’d snap your hand off for a fine or points deduction, even if it was 60 points, because that would only damage you for a moment in time.
“To own a football club in this country is one of the greatest responsibilities you can have. It needs to be taken very seriously.
“We can’t get bogged down with fines and points deductions; concentrate on the two most important things: the achievements during that time and what happens to the owners and executives who oversaw that period.”
Man City FFP verdict ‘chilling’ – Gary Neville
On The Overlap earlier this week, Neville said: “I’m chilled. This is chilling. I support Manchester United, [Jamie Carragher] supports Liverpool, [Roy Keane and Ian Wright] played for Manchester United, Arsenal, [Jill Scott] played for City.
“This is chilling to listen to this. It’s chilling. The Italian game has suffered immeasurably over the last 25 years, maybe from after [Calciopoli]. You know, we’ve played Juventus, we’ve alluded to this before, we felt at the time that this wasn’t right.
“And I’m not saying that’s going to happen to the Premier League. But we always think we’ve got this enormous integrity, the Premier League, that we are the league that sets the standard, and it’s other leagues that have got corruption, fraud, doping scandals, match fixing, referee scandals.
“This has now come into our country; this has now come into our league. This is the greatest export that we have in our country in the world.
“If you go around the world and talk about Liverpool, Manchester, Arsenal – people talk about the Premier League more than anything when you tell them where you’re from in the world. And at the moment, we’re being dragged through the mud.”
Meanwhile, a pundit has claimed there could be a City versus Premier League TV showdown to settle ‘too many coincidences’.
