Manchester City CEO sends message to Premier League rivals

Manchester United have watched Manchester City dominate English football for the best part of 15 years, and Friday’s verdict has reopened old wounds about exactly how that dominance was built.

City were found guilty of the vast majority of the 115 charges brought against them, relating to alleged financial irregularities between the 2009/10 and 2017/18 seasons, the period that transformed them from also-rans into the Premier League’s dominant force following their 2008 Abu Dhabi takeover.

Ferran Soriano has now issued a defiant message to executives from rival clubs, vowing City will fight the charges and reminding them the process “has taken eight years to get here and it’s going to take a lot more time.”

Ferran Soriano made the comments at a board meeting of European Football Clubs in Copenhagen on Tuesday, before leaving without taking questions from the media, with United’s chief of international football relations Jean-Claude Blanc among those present, as reported by BBC Sport.

City strongly deny all wrongdoing and are expected to appeal, but the verdict has already prompted Premier League clubs, United included, to seek legal advice over potential compensation.

United are specifically assessing how much money they may have lost as a result of City’s financial breaches, focusing on four seasons where City directly affected their fortunes.

The most painful of those remains 2011/12, when United finished second on goal difference after Sergio Aguero’s stoppage-time winner against QPR snatched the title away in the most dramatic finish the Premier League has ever seen.

United also finished second behind City in 2017/18, Jose Mourinho’s side accumulating 81 points, a total that would have won the title in ten of the previous fifteen seasons, only for Pep Guardiola’s Centurions to finish 19 points clear.

The 2015/16 season stings for a different reason entirely, with United missing out on Champions League qualification to City on goal difference, a place worth an estimated £30-40million in prize money and broadcast revenue at the time, before United had to settle for the Europa League instead.

According to analysis of what might have happened had City been sanctioned during the period in question, United would have qualified for the Champions League in City’s place during that 2015/16 campaign specifically, while Tottenham were identified as the biggest overall losers, missing out four times in total.

Sanctions for City are yet to be confirmed, but the Premier League’s rulebook allows for punishments ranging from a substantial fine to a points deduction or even expulsion from the top flight, depending on the severity assigned by the independent panel.

Everton and Nottingham Forest were both docked points last season for single breaches of the league’s financial sustainability rules, offering some indication of the scale of punishment that could follow City’s far more extensive case.