Man City could be hit with a SIXTY-POINT deduction if found guilty of 115 charges

Martin Macdonald

• Updated: 24 Feb 2026 05:51 CST
• 3 min read

Nieuws

Manchester City face a historically large points deduction if found guilty of the most egregious offences in their 115 charges by the Premier League.

City are being accused of breaching financial regulations over a period between 2009 and 2018 and for failing to cooperate with subsequent investigations between 2018 and 2023.

In December of 2024, a 12-week tribunal took place in which evidence was presented by the defence, Manchester City, and the prosecution, the Premier League.

Over 14 months later, no punishment has been confirmed. It has been determined that over half a million pieces of evidence were presented at the trial.

Man City have denied any wrongdoing and The Mirror reports that they are confident of coming out of the trial unscathed.

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire has compared the litter of charges for Man City with the small number that Everton and Nottingham Forest were charged with. Due to the difference in scale, he believes a major points deduction is coming - if City are found guilty.

“The Premier League cannot relegate Manchester City to League One or League Two because that’s an EFL decision and Manchester City have not had any charges proven against them by the EFL, so therefore it has to be a points deduction," he explained on The Overlap Fan Debate.

“If we take a look at precedents, we’ve had Everton and Nottingham Forest with six and four-point deductions for a single offence covering a three-year period. The accusations against Manchester City cover a nine-year period, so it’s far bigger. The numbers involved, we’re not certain about, but they’re likely to be quite significant.

"So I think you have to add a zero to what we’ve seen from Forest and Everton, so somewhere between a 40 and 60-point deduction would, I think, on merit, be consistent with what we’ve seen from other decisions on logic. If they want to go further then we don’t know the severity.

"In the cases of both Forest and Everton, they were to do with FFP [Financial Fair Play] purely. The accusations against Manchester City are why it’s taking so long. Corporate fraud is a very serious accusation. The board of directors would have to go. How can you be in a meeting room with other members of the Premier League and the Premier League itself, of whom you’re a shareholder, with this accusation being proven?

"If you take a look at what happened with Juventus in Serie A, their board had to resign when they were claiming things about player wages that were proven to be untrue. I think there’s an honesty thing here, if Manchester City are proven to be guilty. And that could mean a complete restructure of the club.”

Why is the judgment taking so long?

Maguire explains that the outcome is taking so long to announce simply due to the complexity of the accusations.

“[Judging] by the cases similar to a fraud case, I think we’re probably into the final reaches of getting a decision," he added.

"I think part of the challenge is that, because there are three very senior people on the call for making that final judgement, getting those three together at the same time is actually very difficult and that has delayed the case.

"It should be resolved in the next few months, but we’ve said this before. But there’s an awful lot of evidence to go through and the charges are very very serious so you’ve got to have enough evidence.”

Premier League chief Richard Masters was asked when the outcome might be made public and told NBC in July 2025: “You can ask but our rules are very clear, it's a confidential process so I can't give any information on timing or anything like that. I can't add anything on that.”

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