by Despite the noise made by Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal fans (among others), Manchester City’s high-profile Premier League listening is not comparable to that of Everton, Nottingham Forest, or Leicester City. This is good and bad.
On the positive side, there is no football scandal associated with the 115 alleged violations. Although some of the claims relate to profitability and sustainability (PSR), the allegation is effectively more fraud, lying and cheating.
Unlike Everton and Forest, who both went over the clearly defined £105million allowable loss threshold over a rolling three-year period, City have been accused of malpractice, trying to pull the wool over the league’s eyes, and seeking an advantage actively unfair rather than. but be a little reckless to spend.
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This means that the initial 10-point deduction (later reduced to six) for Everton is not worth transferring into a City penalty. Everton accepted they went over the line, and provided mitigation as to why it happened, but did not dispute their account.
Forest took more of the fight but they were still allowed. City, however, threw a full back and denied any of the Premier League’s offers.
Looking at the picture in two ways again, on one hand the league failed to achieve the punishment it needed before (after relegating Everton and leaving Leicester on a technicality), which gives hope to their City would be found guilty. There may be no limit to how strong they could try to come down on Pep Guardiola’s side should things go badly though.
With no clear comparable case across sport, let alone football, to City’s current one, Sportsman looks at how other high-profile penalties have been handed down.
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Points deductions
This one is simple and close to home. The Premier League doesn’t have too much history with narrow points from its own members but it has happened.
In recent memory it is Everton and Forest. In 2010, Portsmouth dropped nine points and were eventually relegated after going into administration. There was also the Middlesbrough case in January 1997.
The north-east side were the first club to be punished when they failed to get a game out with manager Bryan Robson claiming 23 players were absent through illness or injury. He said it had been confirmed it would be postponed, but Boro failed to provide the required proof and earned themselves a three-point deduction plus a £50,000 fine.
Fines
This is a more common way of trying to discourage wrongdoing from players and clubs across the sport. One of the biggest on record involves the McLaren Formula One group being fined a whopping £50 million for accessing the technical information of their rivals, Ferrari, in 2007.
In 2000, NBA star Joe Smith was at the center of a scandal that earned the Minnesota Timberwolves a fine of over £2 million at the time. That involved agreeing a contract under the table and covering the deal.
Relegation
Moving now to some of the more serious cases. In 2006 it was discovered that Juventus were at the center of a match-fixing scandal which saw the club relegated from Serie A. Juventus were also stripped of back-to-back titles (more on that later), and fell to last place in the league.
Called Calciopoli, the Old Lady was found to be picking referees for matches and getting themselves officials who gave favorable decisions. Although no bribes were taken, Juventus were heavily punished alongside Fiorentina, Lazio, and AC Milan.
Juve were the only team to be left out but were 30 points clear of the other three sides. Prison sentences. fines, and some of the pastors involved in the scandal were banned from football.
Moving across sports to rugby and Saracens were also sacked for breaching the Premier League’s salary caps. A maximum of 35 points have already been deducted for spending three years above the spending limit, as well as a fine of £5.5 million.
Saracens accepted the sanction but also saw Premiership Rugby get rid of them anyway. Like Juventus, they bounced back immediately.
Stripped titles
Another method that has been used is to go back and make a success of the history books (albeit with an asterisk). Once again it is Juventus in football that stands out.
Inter were awarded the 2005/06 Serie A crown – the year before the Juventus scandal came to light – but there was no other winner the year before. Milan finished second to Juve that season, and were also punished, so there is a blank line in the champions’ list in 2004/05.
Turning elsewhere again and Lance Armstrong may be the greatest example in sport of winning titles. The seven-time Tour de France winner was stripped of all his titles after a doping investigation found him guilty of using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).
Armstrong would go on to admit his mistakes after denying claims during the 90s that he was using PEDs. He won his titles in consecutive years but was later banned from all world events in accordance with the anti-doping code. His victories were not awarded to other riders.
