To ban or not to ban and for how long? The questions of what happens to Man C

By Tony Attwood

The issue of what to do about ManC is obviously far from being resolved.  There is a lot of feeling for expelling the club from the League, and a lot for a major points deduction.

The Telegraph behind its usual paywall reports, however, that if the rest of the league kick ManC out, the disgraced club will then resurrect the notion of the super league and start recruiting fellow clubs for that venture – including some in Europe if they can’t find enough at home. PSG is an obvious starting candidate in France.

But they will have a problem, in that their reputation as cheats now precedes them – clubs might want change, but not change led by a club that has done what the Mancs have done.

There are of course leagues where the same club (or maybe just two clubs) win all the time. me.   Manc obviously want that model in England, In some places (Germany) for example there is one such club (Bayern) in Spain there are two (Real Mad and Barcelona).   But I think there is a general feeling in England that the further one gets away from this sort of non-competition the better.   

There is a thought that expelling ManC totally from the Premier League but there is the problem of where they go next.   Some in the League are now saying that is not their problem – just expel ManC for ever.

Certainly the suggestion that ManC can stay in the PL now has very few supporters because of the belief that wherever they are, they’ll just repeat what they have been doing.   

There are also some that look for new financial rules – but they are opposed by others who argue that ManC totally ignored all the financial rules last time so what is to stop them doing it again?  “Three years on,” they argue, “we’ll be back here all over again.”.

Worse, such an approach would mean that the tactics used by the Mancs (see for example Practical implications of the Manchester City Decision ) would then affect what the other clubs do.   In short, what do you do with people who have absolutely no respect for the rules?  

For Manc however I think a solution is simpler: leave the Premier League and join a Super League with the likes of Real Madrid, Bayern etc.   But the problem for ManC is they have shown themselves utterly willing to break all the rules of whatever competition they are in.   In reality, other clubs in Europe no longer trust them, and don’t want to play in a league with them.

So other clubs don’t want ManC in their league, given what they have done of late.   So it begins to look as if the behaviour of the club has led to its own punishment.   No one else wants to be in a league with the Mancs.

In France and Germany they don’t want it, because they already have that situation.   Other leagues where different clubs can win each season, don’t want that approach.  If ManC are kicked out of the Premier League.   The phrase heard in private is “they’ll only do it again”.

The Premier League began in 1992 and is clearly not a league of equals.  From the start of the League in 1992, there have only been seven different winners of the league title: Manchester United, Blackburn Rovers, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Leicester City and Liverpool.  But the fact is that it is not just money or persuading referees to act in a certain way that wins the title – clubs themselves can rise and fall.  However ManCs rise has the aim of rising forever.  It is a model suited to Germany, and France not to England, and we should be proud we have not allowed the French model in particular to happen in England.

Certainly one season in the Championship would be useless as the Mancs would just come back and do it all again using its “disguised funding scheme”  as it now seems to be increasingly known, to keep them winning.  For although the rest of the Prem won’t have a say on where ManC ends up, the extent of bad feeling toward the Mancs means that the League knows it dare not allow ManC to remain in the PL with just a promise it will behave.  The rest of the League would most likely just leave and form a new league without the Mancs.

Fortunately it is the people who found 115 rule breaks who will state what happens to ManC so we can be pretty sure they won’t just tinkle with the situation.  The rules suggest we will know exactly what the judgement is by February – although it could be earlier.  And ManC are certain to appeal – including appealing for more time to argue their appeal, just as it did during the hearing of their case. 

Another approach could also be a five year period of not allowing transfers, or a ten year exclusion from the League itself.  And if these seem excessive remember the Mancs have been found guilty of undermining the very essence of the Premier League.  They cheated: there is no greater crime in sport.

And we know that many clubs want very severe punishments – so anything less than expulsion could result in clubs walking away from the PL and forming a new league.   Certainly relegation won’t quell the demand for far more.  Indeed if a majority of clubs think the League has been too soft, there could be a wholesale uprising of club opinion against the existing League and the formation of a new League without Manc..

And then, if all that is not enough, here’s one more point.   We must not forget that Arsenal and others have reserved their rights to sue ManC themselves.  So this isn’t going away quickly.