Premier League Earthquake: Neville Demands the Harshest Punishment for Man City After Guilty Verdict
English football is living through one of its most serious crises ever, after an official verdict shook the Premier League to its core and put one of its biggest clubs in the dock, with the whole country now waiting for the punishment to come in the days ahead.
Amid the storm, one of the most famous figures in the English game has called for a sanction few expected, insisting that points deductions, stripped titles or fines would not be enough, and that there is only one punishment he considers fair, and it would be the harshest of all.
The club in question is Manchester City. The Premier League confirmed in a strongly worded statement that City have been found guilty on 114 of the 115 charges they had faced since 2023 for breaching financial rules. The club are expected to challenge the independent panel’s verdict and have until Friday, October 2, to lodge their appeal.
Manchester United legend Gary Neville, speaking on Stick to Football, said the only fair punishment with the biggest consequences would be removing City’s current owners from the Premier League, adding that the club itself would recover because its history is far longer than the current ownership. Neville described what happened as “industrial-level financial doping”, said he was not celebrating but found it “chilling”, and compared the situation to the damage Italian football suffered after Calciopoli, warning that the Premier League is being dragged through the mud.
Speculation over the sanctions ranges from stripping the titles City won between 2009 and 2018, the period when the breaches occurred, to expulsion from the league, a points penalty big enough to effectively relegate them, heavy fines or transfer restrictions. Jamie Carragher, writing in the Telegraph, urged City’s owners to sell the club, while Independent Football Regulator chair David Kogan said the IFR has powers to assess the suitability of owners and executives and will use them where appropriate, though it will await further developments while proceedings between City and the Premier League continue.
