Man City or Harchester United? City could still play in Champions League after relegation

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FT Desk

The future of Manchester City as a club is clouded in uncertainty at the moment following the Premier League verdict last week.

The Premier League has found City guilty of 114 financial breaches which include inflating sponsorship deals to allow them to dominate the transfer market with spending and double payments made to players and managers.

In the eyes of many, their most egregious offence was not cooperating with the actual investigation, which dragged on for years.

No punishment has been announced by the Premier League as of yet but relegation is a real possibility, which will lead to an exodus of players and the immediate need to reduce their £400m wage bill in order to meet Football League FFP rules in the Championship.

It is unlikely they will be kicked out of the English top flight, but they could be given a points deduction that would ensure relegation, meaning they will not play in Europe next season and instead play in the Championship.

There is one way that they would guarantee participation in the Champions League next year, however, and that's by winning the competition in the current campaign.

Under UEFA regulations, winners of the competition automatically qualify for the next edition in order to defend their crown.

Therefore, it's a real possibility that Man City could be playing in the Championship and the Champions League unless UEFA decide on their own investigation and subsequent punishment. UEFA did previously ban City from the competition at the start of the decade for serious financial breaches, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned the ban because the offences were "time-barred" under UEFA's rules.

BBC Sport reports that senior figures at clubs in the English game are concerned that City being allowed to play in the Champions League, even if relegated from the Premier League, does not represent a sufficient punishment for their 114 charges.

Harchester United and Dream Team

The situation evokes memories of the popular television series Dream Team in which Harchester United played in the Champions League and the Championship at the same time.

Harchester United were relegated from the Premier League because of a match-fixing scandal, but they had already qualified for the Champions League through their league position. UEFA allowed them to keep their Champions League place even though they were relegated domestically.

Dream Team was a British football drama series that aired on Sky One from 1997 to 2007.

The show started out as a fairly straightforward football drama, following the players, manager and owners of Harchester United.

But as the years went on, it became famous for increasingly outrageous storylines involving murder, affairs, corruption, the aforementioned match-fixing, kidnappings, drugs and even players being killed off.