An insider from the era before the Abu Dhabi takeover has drawn the sharpest line yet on how Manchester City should be punished.
David Bernstein, who chaired the club from 1998 to 2003, told Times Radio that fines could not carry the weight of a case this size. “All I would say is that money is not sufficient, it would have to be something, unfortunately, more drastic than that,” he said, speaking as the fallout from Friday’s reported verdict spread through the game.
His warning stands out because it comes from a former chairman rather than a rival club or a pundit. Bernstein ran City in the years before the 2008 buyout by Sheikh Mansour, and he framed his intervention as a personal one, saying that if the charges are upheld after appeal, “my beloved club is going to face a very severe penalty”.
114 of 115 charges
Reports on Friday, 25 September indicated that an independent commission had found the club guilty of 114 of the 115 Premier League charges first announced in February 2023. According to a rundown by Al Jazeera, the charges cover 54 counts of failing to provide accurate financial information between 2009-10 and 2017-18, 14 counts on inaccurate player and manager payment details, five UEFA-related breaches, seven profitability and sustainability breaches, and 35 counts of failing to cooperate with the investigation from 2018 onwards.
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The Premier League has not made any official statement, describing the process as confidential. City have said the process “remains ongoing” and are understood to be preparing to challenge the findings at an independent appeal board.
Khaldoon Al Mubarak digs in
The club’s current chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, has struck a very different tone from Bernstein’s. In his statement carried through the reporting, Al Mubarak insisted that “the Premier League process still has a long way to run, and our confidence and intent in proving the club’s innocence is just as strong as when this began”.
That defiance sets up a long second phase for a case that has already run for more than three and a half years since the charges were first filed.
What ‘drastic’ would mean in practice
Points deductions have become the reference point in English football since Everton and Nottingham Forest were docked points in the 2023-24 season for profitability and sustainability breaches. A breakdown of possible sanctions lists a heavy points deduction, a transfer ban and substantial fines among the lesser options, with expulsion from the Premier League described as the most severe outcome available to the commission.
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Expulsion would strip the club of its top-flight place and force it to start again in the English pyramid, ending its uninterrupted Premier League run that dates back to promotion in 2002. Trophy removal, potentially reaching back to titles won since the 2008 takeover, has also been floated in the reporting.
Bernstein’s other public concern was timing. He warned that a drawn-out appeal would harm the game as a whole, telling Times Radio that “the appeal process cannot go on for year after year, I think that would be a disaster” and adding that this applied “not just for this particular case but for English football generally”.
The club is now under Italian head coach Enzo Maresca, who replaced Pep Guardiola in the summer and has led Manchester City into the September international break top of the Premier League with five wins from five, according to the club’s own manager-of-the-month update. The case now moves to an independent appeal board.
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