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For Manchester City 2026, see Saracens 2019. Premier League punishment is key
For Manchester City 2026, see Saracens 2019. Cheating in sport is common on the pitch and it probably happens a lot more than we’d care to admit off it. But sometimes it is blatant and sometimes it is brazen.
The independent commission’s verdict on 115 charges lodged by the Premier League against Manchester City was released on Tuesday, and it details a severe case of cheating. The club deny the claims.
But what punishment should be bestowed on the Abi Dhabi-owned team if the guilty verdicts are upheld? For that we should look back to the biggest cheating scandal in rugby.
Back then it was Saracens setting up companies, image rights schemes and promotional payments to skirt the salary cap. They were fined over £5m for their sins and deducted enough points – in two 35-point chunks – to relegate them. They spent a year in the second-tier Championship before coming back up.
But was that an actual punishment? A lot of that Saracens team stayed together and, while their dominance was dented, they’ve won a title since then. Fans couldn’t even mock their existence in the Championship because the season was played behind closed doors due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the reality is they were completely fine.
Manchester City punishment will be major
So it begs the question: what can the Premier League and the organisation’s punishers-at-large learn from the Saracens saga? Well, don’t relegate Manchester City.
For Saracens, the relegation, while humiliating, took them away from the spotlight. Perhaps they should have been given a points deduction every year for five years; enough to stop them reaching the top four. It would have maintained their presence within the league while punishing their wrongdoing.
For Manchester City, that should be the main thrust of any punishment: long-term suffering without being able to market themselves as rising from the ashes.
But beyond that there should be other learnings from rugby. Saracens weren’t placed under a transfer ban and were able to go on as normal, so long as they remained within the salary cap.
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The Premier League should get creative with Manchester City: keep any money raised from player sales for non-league clubs in trouble; implement a complete transfer ban on players; only allow them to sign English players on loan; and ensure the punishment is visible to all who care – mainly fans.
The point is this: I don’t believe it is in the best interests of the game to relegate Manchester City when there is a greater impact, and price to be paid, from remaining within the Premier League.
Level playing field
Sport is never really a level playing field and I am not sure anyone believes it ever has been. And with that, punishments should ensure that something is given back in return for all that has been taken.
What the Premier League commission’s findings show is that brazen attempts to skirt – albeit arbitrary – footballing rules will be found out, eventually at least.
How different organisations across sport react to that varies. The NBA’s LA Clippers were slapped with a $30m fine and their owner Steve Ballmer was banned from a year’s worth of games for paying Kawhi Leonard extra via back-door schemes.
Yet Saracens were allowed to quietly go about their business and return without a major hit, comparatively speaking at least.
So Manchester City is an interesting test case. And it is something the Premier League can use to deter others while ensuring that fans feel like their outrage has been heard.
Former England Sevens captain Ollie Phillips is the founder of Optimist Performance. Follow Ollie @OlliePhillips11
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