Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Paul Pogba are Premier League champions. So, too, are Brendan Rodgers and Steven Gerrard. Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool might be struggling right now, but can you blame them? They've won three of the past five Premier League titles. It's pretty wild that Everton and West Ham were finally able to break into the top four, too.
None of that is true -- yet -- which raises some questions about the nature of truth itself. But I guess that's what happens when the most dominant team in the most competitive league for the most popular sport in the world is charged with 115 different regulatory violations over a nine-year period.
The scope of the Premier League's charges announced against Manchester City on Monday is unprecedented, and so is the scope of the potential outcomes. Everyone has questions, so what better way to address some of them than a City-themed mailbag!
To be included in future editions of the mailbag, send me a question on Twitter (@rwohan) or shoot an email over to ohanlonmailbag@gmail.com.
Let's get to your questions.
So ... will they be relegated? -- Adam
The short answer: probably not, but it's possible. Now for the long answer.
You can break the charges against City into three separate buckets. The first are all based around the idea that they artificially increased their reported income with money that essentially was coming directly from the people who own the club, via sponsorships from companies that those people also own, including the United Arab Emirates-owned Etihad Airways and the telecommunications company Etisalat.
The second bucket: misrepresenting costs of managerial and player salaries. Among other things, they reportedly paid former manager Roberto Mancini both through the club (which registered as part of City's operating costs) and through a UAE-based club Al Jazira, where he was required to work for only four days a year.
The third bucket: not complying with -- and actively attempting to hinder -- the investigation. Even though City won the appeal against UEFA's decision to expel them from the Champions League in 2020, the Court of Arbitration for Sport did uphold UEFA's accusations that City did not cooperate with investigators. They were fined $11.3 million for it. City also did sue the Premier League to prevent the club from having to turn over certain relevant documents, but City lost the case.
Rob Dawson explains how no punishment is out of the question for Manchester City after they were charged by the Premier League for breaking financial rules.
The UEFA case was overturned, in part, because many of the charges existed outside of UEFA's statute of limitations, which lasted for only five years. While many of the charges are similar to UEFA's, the Premier League has no time limit for alleged violations and the case cannot be appealed to CAS because England exists outside its jurisdiction.
The league also doesn't have any specific sentencing guidelines -- that means a certain number or type of violation doesn't automatically lead to a certain type of punishment. So depending on what the Premier League's independent judicial panel finds, there's the potential for everything from a strongly worded news release, a financial penalty, a wage or squad-size cap, a points penalty or even, yes, relegation.
The Premier League has been building its case for five years, and there are two ways to look at that:
1. They've been slowly and methodical building what they think is as close to an airtight case as possible, or
2. They took so long because they're incompetent, and they'll be no match for the financial and legal firepower that City will inevitably throw at them.
However, there's another factor that makes me think this could end up going very poorly for City: the rest of the league wants that to happen.
Essentially, City are accused of violating a number of rules so they could spend more money. Were this, say, Major League Baseball, where there's no salary cap and only tax penalties for overspending, City's ownership would likely be making record levels of luxury-tax payments each year and upsetting the rest of the league with their spending, but it would be fine. They'd make Mets owner Steve Cohen look like a guy with an index fund. If anything, City would be viewed as good owners, compared to the other billionaires who don't invest as much into the team as they can and instead just reap the yearly operating profits and appreciation of the team as an asset.
Of course, that's not how soccer is set up. While Financial Fair Play has stabilized finances across the sport, it has also made it harder for other clubs to spend their way to the top. The clubs making the most money when FFP was introduced were essentially protected from other clubs breaking into the top tier and stealing their Champions League revenue. Like it or not, though, the current macro "game" of soccer is to figure out how to maximize the on-field output of your revenue, so you succeed on the field and therefore increase your revenue and therefore get even better on the field and therefore make even more money and on and on.
City, if the accusations stand, opted not to play that "game." Instead, they simply sidestepped the rules. So owners whose teams played the "game" will be upset that they've lost out on titles and Champions League and Europa League places.
However, I think they'll mainly be upset that they lost out on the revenue that comes with winning the league and qualifying for the Champions League. And I also think that most of the owners -- at least the ones who aren't backed by state money -- want to be told that they can spend only a certain amount of money because it lowers their costs.
A strong punishment for City would make it clear there's no upside to pushing the financial limits and trying to pump as much money into your club as you can. On top of that, a strong punishment for City possibly increases the valuations of Premier League clubs, as it makes clear it's a relatively regulated investment environment despite the risk of relegation.
Mark Ogden feels Pep Guardiola's intensity combined with Man City's predictable attacking style since the arrival of Erling Haaland are holding them back in the Premier League.
When we think of the Premier League, we're really just thinking of the 20 people or groups who own the clubs in the Premier League. I think there's an argument that a severe punishment for City would raise all kinds of questions about the competitive integrity of the league, and that could have all kinds of knock-on effects, but I don't think any individual, non-City club is thinking this way.
While I think relegation is still unlikely -- it's the most extreme potential outcome and when you're predicting something, you usually don't put it all the way at the end of the tail -- there's one other reason why there's a very-tiny-but-still-real chance that it happens. Had, say, Barcelona or PSG been accused of the same kinds of violations -- and, well, PSG were, but we're not getting into that today -- then relegating either of those teams would simply destroy the leagues they exist within. But in England, there are now six other incredibly wealthy clubs, while everyone else is still richer than almost everyone else in Europe. If City did disappear from the league, not much would change.
Dispersal draft! City is relegated out of existence. What are the best fits for the interesting players on the roster? -- Doug
All right, we'll do this in reverse order, kind of like the inverse of an expansion draft in American sports. So, in this exercise, Manchester City ceases to exist and all of their players are distributed to the rest of the Premier League. There are no salary considerations in this exercise -- not as fun! -- and we'll say that each team in the league gets one pick.
Let's start at the bottom of the table and go from there.
1. Southampton: FW Erling Haaland. He's an easy fit, and they're in last place. They just need as many goals as they can get.
2. Bournemouth: MF Kevin De Bruyne. They can use help everywhere; anyone else is overthinking it.
3. Everton: FW Phil Foden. Sean Dyche can get a good defense out of anyone, and Foden is the best attacker left on the board.
4. Leeds: MF Rodri. He's the best player available, and Leeds need depth in the midfield and in the backline. Rodri gives them both.
5. West Ham: FW Jack Grealish. He's the perfect fit opposite Jarrod Bowen. Let Grealish drive the ball down the left flank, and then have Bowen, Antonio and Soucek crash into the box.
6. Wolves: MF Bernardo Silva. He's Portuguese.
7. Leicester City: GK Ederson. Although Danny Ward has picked it up after a rough start, they still could use an upgrade in goal.
8. Nottingham Forest: DF Ruben Dias. They're one of the worst defensive teams in the league, and he's probably the best defender on the board.
9. Crystal Palace: MF Ilkay Gundogan. Remember how good Conor Gallagher was last season? Now just imagine if Conor Gallagher could pass, too.
10. Aston Villa: DF Aymeric Laporte. He's a much better fit for Unai Emery Ball than Tyrone Mings.
11. Liverpool: MF Kalvin Phillips. He has only 21 minutes on his legs this season, and he's the only midfielder left. Yes, these are both arguments in his favor.
12. Chelsea: FW Julian Alvarez. Were Alvarez still on River Plate during his star turn at the World Cup, he would absolutely be on Chelsea right now.
13. Fulham: DF Kyle Walker. Much more reserved as he has gotten older, he'd be a nice fit on the opposite side from Antonee Robinson.
14. Brentford: DF Nathan Ake. While the other defenders left are much more pass-first guys, Ake seem like a better fit for the more direct way Brentford want to play.
15. Brighton: DF Rico Lewis. In an alternate universe, Rico Lewis is currently a Brighton player and will move for $100 million in a couple years. Brighton's results won't be affected at all.
16. Tottenham: DF John Stones. I really can't picture this man playing for Antonio Conte, but he'd immediately upgrade their back three.
17. Newcastle: DF Manuel Akanji. With Fabian Schaar and Sven Botman, this would immediately give Newcastle one of the deepest center-back groups in the league.
18. Manchester United: GK Stefan Ortega. His shot-stopping in the Bundesliga was quite good, and he'd be way more comfortable with the ball at his feet than David de Gea.
19. Arsenal: DF Sergio Gomez. Sure, why not?
What implications do these charges have on their sister clubs? -- Michael
Great question. City Football Group includes men's and women's teams not only in England, but also the United States, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Australia, Uruguay, Japan, France, India and China. The main benefit, so far, comes from having a global network with institutional knowledge across the world. At least with Manchester City, we're not really seeing players cycled up to the top club in the way Red Bull does it, but having clubs (and therefore people) working off the same ideas all over the world likely helps with scouting and team-building in a way that's tough to actually quantify.
From a punishment standpoint, all of City's other clubs will be unaffected. This is the Premier League's investigation, and City are the only club in City Football Group that plays in the Premier League. As for downstream impacts from the Premier League winning its case? It depends on how serious the punishment is. A fine or even just a points deduction -- I doubt it has any effect. Perhaps a larger punishment -- relegation, a sizable wage cap -- could lead CFG to focus more on its other clubs or, I guess, it could lead to the Abu Dhabi ownership group reevaluating the whole soccer ownership thing. But given that range of potential outcomes here, the prediction is that any sanctions won't have much of an effect on the other clubs.
Let's assume they're guilty of all the financial crimes (CAS didn't dispute this). Is there any just punishment? Haven't they already derived all the advantages of the cheating? Points deductions, vacating of titles, fines? What does any of it accomplish? -- Alex
It certainly seems like a problem to me that most of soccer's financial punishments are retroactive. LaLiga has attempted to introduce a forward-looking regulation system, in which teams have to meet various regulations before the season. That's still not quite the same as it is in American sports, where you simply can't make a transaction if it violates the league's regulations, but it's much closer.
The upside of LaLiga's approach is transparency and something toward fairness. But more than that, fans can at least watch LaLiga matches this season and know the games they're seeing are being played between teams that have been judged to have passed whatever the financial regulations in the league are.
The downside, well, is that you essentially go to war with Barcelona, the biggest club in your league, and create a situation where the greatest soccer player of all time, Lionel Messi, is forced to go play somewhere else. These forward-looking rules are, by definition, more strict because a club can't just spend and then figure it out later or hope the regulations change or that someone forms another Super League or whatever. So, that theoretically makes it harder for Spanish teams to build the kinds of teams that can compete in Europe.
Unfortunately, the Premier League rules work the way they do because that's what the clubs decided on and in order to change it, 14 of the clubs would have to vote in favor of a new regulatory system. Given the wildly different desires of the clubs across the league -- those just fighting to stay up, those wanting to break into the Champions League, those hoping to just be in the Champions League forever -- it has been really difficult to get enough clubs to agree on anything that could theoretically shift the competitive balance of the league. Everyone wants a different competitive balance, but no one wants the same competitive balance, and so you get questions like this one from Alex.
Since most of these financial requirements are assessed over a multi-season stretch, you also get a situation where Leicester City are fined for violating financial rules in the Championship, and then winning the Premier League a couple years later. The fine, of course, didn't happen until a couple of years after Leicester won the title. Or there's Bournemouth, who were fined in 2018 for violating rules when they were promoted to the Premier League in 2015.
The most recent Premier League "violation" that even remotely approaches the City situation was with West Ham in 2006-07. Out of nowhere, the club signed two of the biggest prospects in South America in the summer of '06: Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano. The latter barely played at all and then joined Liverpool in January. Tevez, though, went on a tear and essentially saved West Ham from relegation before moving to Manchester United after the season.
Before the season was even over, though, the Premier League discovered that both the Tevez and Mascherano deals violated the league's third-party ownership rules, as their rights were partially owned by their agent, Kia Joorabchian. The move was illegal, and it's illegality is the only reason Tevez ended up on West Ham to begin with. The league fined West Ham a then-record £5.5 million during the season, but there was no points penalty and the Hammers avoided relegation by three points and Sheffield United were relegated on the final day. They then took West Ham to court two years later and earned a £20m settlement after it was agreed that Tevez's goals essentially led to Sheffield United's relegation.
The money's nice, but the club only briefly bounced back up into the Premier league for two seasons before being sent back down. West Ham, meanwhile, have been in the top flight for 15 of the previous 16 seasons.
I imagine any clubs who feel like they were affected by the violations -- Liverpool missing out on multiple league titles by one point, clubs that just missed out on the Champions League places by a point or two -- would feel the same way as Alex about any of the potential punishments.
Even though it probably won't happen, let's imagine their punishment is relegation, a la Juventus in 2006. What would City's points and goal differential be in the Championship? -- Zach
When Juventus were relegated for the match-fixing scandal in 2006, they lost Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Inter Milan, midfielder Emerson to Real Madrid, fullback Gianluca Zambrotta to Barcelona, midfielder Patrick Vieira to Inter Milan, forward Adrian Mutu to Fiorentina, center-back Fabio Cannavaro to Real Madrid, and center-back Lilian Thuram to Barcelona. That's a wild amount of talent ... and relegation for City would likely lead to a similar exodus.
Prior to relegation, Juventus were the third-richest team in Europe after Real Madrid and Barcelona. We, uh, don't know how much legitimate revenue City actually has, but it's still somewhere in that range.
Anyway, in the season after which they were to be relegated, Juventus finished first in Serie A with 91 points and a plus-47 goal differential. Per FiveThirtyEight, City are currently projected to finish on 81 points with a plus-52 goal differential. But according to the Elo ratings, City are currently the No. 1 team in Europe, while Juventus were No. 3 -- behind No. 1 Chelsea and No. 2 Barcelona -- at this point in the 2005-06 season. City are probably slightly better than Juve were, then.
After losing those players, Juventus were immediately promoted from Serie B the following season, finishing first with a plus-53 goal differential and 85 points from 42 games. Extrapolated out to the 46-game Championship season, that adds up to something like a plus-58 goal differential and 93 points. However, the Championship records were both set by Reading in 05-06: plus-67 and 106 points. Over 38 games, that's an 87-point pace.
Something tells me that City would want to break the record, but even though this is a completely hypothetical scenario that likely won't even happen, I'm still not going to predict it. Instead, let's land somewhere between Reading and the Juve rate: a plus-63 goal differential and 100 points.
Congrats, again, to the Centurions.