The giveaway, for Jesse Marsch, was the Haaland fee.

“When they said they got Erling Haaland for £52m, it’s like: ‘Yeah, OK, sure!’” the former Leeds United manager told The Guardian. “So, I knew there were inconsistencies in it, but what can you do? You just put your arms in the air and go, ‘This is football.’”

Marsch, now Canada’s head coach, was speaking after an independent commission found Manchester City guilty of almost all 115 Premier League charges relating to sham sponsorship deals and inflated revenues between 2009 and 2018. The verdict, confirmed by the Premier League on Tuesday 29 September, concluded the club had systematically broken the competition’s rules for close to a decade.

What Marsch wants from the sanction stage is the harshest option on the table.

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“I think Man City should be punished severely. I think they should have to go down, and by the way, everyone knew about it. Everyone knew.”

The Leeds summer that didn’t add up

The suspicion, Marsch said, dates to the summer of 2022, his only full transfer window at Leeds. The club sold Kalvin Phillips to Manchester City for £45m and Raphinha to Barcelona, and told the market the window had been profitable. City claimed to have done the same.

“That summer, us and Man City were the only teams that said we made money,” Marsch said. “For us, we did make money, because we sold Raphinha, we sold Kalvin Phillips. At the time, we weren’t in a position financially to not save. Our ownership didn’t have deep pockets. Whereas when Man City says this, I was literally like, ‘Are you kidding me? Is this some kind of joke?’”

Haaland’s reported £52m fee from Borussia Dortmund in that same window struck him as implausible.

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Maguire sees a 50-to-60-point deduction

Marsch’s demand is his opinion, not a sanction the commission has handed down. The punishment hearing is being held separately in private, and Manchester City have said they are “disappointed and surprised” by the verdict, insist they are “innocent of the accusations”, and will be “relentless” in pursuing appeals.

Football finance analyst Kieran Maguire has sketched out where the sanction could land. Pointing to the points deductions already handed to Nottingham Forest, Everton and Leicester City for breaches of the league’s profitability and sustainability rules, he told TEAMtalk his best reading was a deduction “somewhere in the region of perhaps 50 to 60 points”, plus a substantial fine and roughly £50m to £60m in legal costs.

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

Manchester City have said they will appeal, and no hearing date has been set.

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