Man City FFP: Kieran Maguire predicts the points deduction and fine club will face

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire has suggested the exact points deduction Manchester City could face after being found guilty in their FFP case, as well as the huge costs the club will have to pay.

An independent commission found that Man City used ‘sham’ contracts with sponsors to hide payments made to the club by their owners. These ‘sham’ deals helped City to save £900million between 2009 and 2018, allowing them to spend far more than their rivals in the transfer market.

City have appealed the verdict, calling it ‘unsafe’ and simply ‘opinion’.

But they are expected to be punished before the end of the season.

City could have their trophies removed by the Premier League and FA. Other potential sanctions include a transfer ban, fine, points deduction or relegation from the top flight.

On talkSPORT, Maguire predicted City will have to pay £50-60m in legal costs on top of a ‘substantial fine’, while their points deduction could hit 50-60 points.

“As far as the outcome is concerned, I think we’ve got to look at precedent,” Maguire said.

“Chelsea were given significant fines from both the Football Association (and remember, the Football Association might take this up later) and from the Premier League for around £20m over their financial misdemeanours, not registering payments to unauthorised agents and so on.

“So you would expect that to be quite significant. Also, it was noticeable in the Chelsea claim that the club agreed to pay the Premier League legal costs, which were quite substantial. These are going to be far bigger.

“So we’re probably talking about £50m-£60m in all probability, plus a substantial fine.

“Then, of course, we’ve got the precedent of Nottingham Forest, Everton, and Leicester City, all of whom breached the PSR limits and were given points deductions.

“Now, the logic behind that is that if you spend more money on players, it gives you an advantage on the pitch, and that advantage on the pitch should be punished with a punishment on the pitch in the form of a points deduction.

“Given that the Man City offences took place over a longer period of time, therefore it’s multiple offences over multiple years, you would expect a multiple of the points deductions that we’ve seen.

“We don’t know by how much Man City exceeded the PSR limits, and we’re now working on the basis of reading some of the former reports that it works out as a three-point deduction to kick off with, plus one extra point per extra £6.5m over the limit. So that will form a rough basis.

“And then there’s a further issue, have you assisted with the investigation? We’ll suggest they probably haven’t. So that’s called an aggregating factor, and the panel could subsequently give an additional points deduction on top of that.

“If all of those are proven post-appeal, my gut reaction is we would be looking for somewhere in the region of perhaps 50 to 60 points.

“If it’s more than 70 points, they’re effectively relegated.

“From a drama point of view, and I appreciate the commission’s not interested in the drama, you give Man City a 50-point deduction, they go to minus 35, there’s 33 matches left to play for, you’ve actually got a fantastic story.

“Because they could try and stay up. They could just about stay up. And I think the attitude of the players and everything would be fascinating.

“But that’s a Hollywood story, rather than, ‘Is that appropriate?’”

Gary Neville has suggested the points deduction City would ‘snap your hand off’ for.

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