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Pep Guardiola has suggested that Liverpool and all other Premier League clubs wish to see Manchester City sanctioned by the Premier League over the 115 allegations of financial wrongdoing. The independent panel hearing for the charges, which Man City deny in full, begins on Monday.
The Premier League is accusing the club of illicit financing and un-cooperation on matters between 2009 and 2018, having first levelled the charges in February 2023. If found guilty, the scope of punishments could be unlimited given the case’s unprecedented scale.
This is not the first time the club has come under financial scrutiny, having been handed a two-year European ban by UEFA for allegedly breaking cash rules in 2020. This ruling was eventually overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2021.
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Meanwhile, the nature of the Premier League case has attracted many opinions from those inside and outside of the legislative industry, with La Liga president Javier Tebas weighing in with his thoughts this week. “I have spoken with many Premier League clubs and most of them understand that City should be sanctioned,” he claimed to Spanish media.
“Maybe he’s right,” Guardiola said in response to these comments during Friday’s press conference. Unfurling unsubstantiated claims about Liverpool and the rest of the league, he added: “For the fact that all the Premier League teams want us to be sanctioned, that is for sure.
“I agree with Tebas for the first time, and hopefully the last. I am pretty sure I agree with that.
“That’s why I say to Mr Tebas and the Premier League teams: wait for the independent panel. Justice is there in a modern democracy so yeah, wait for the decision, it’s not more complicated than that.
“But I don’t know if he is a lawyer or the rest of the Premier League teams are lawyers so what I ask for is that – wait, it happened with UEFA [in 2021]. We believe that we have not done anything wrong so we go to an independent panel and we are going to wait.”
Guardiola said he was “happy” that the hearing for the 115 charges is due to begin on Monday, scorning: “I know there will be more rumours about the sentences that come up and we’re going to see.
“I know what people are looking for, I know what they are expecting – I know it because I have read it for many years – but I’ve said everyone is innocent until guilt is proven. So we will see.”
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola poses with the Premier League(Image: Visionhaus/Getty Images)
As a club, Liverpool have never commented publicly on the case against Man City. Despite the possible wide-ranging punishments, it is unclear what the Premier League can truly sanction should the Blues indeed be found guilty.
An independent panel in February judged that the League was unjustified in handing a 12-point deduction to Everton upon their finance breaches, and instead reduced the penalty to six points after using former EFL administrative cases as a benchmark.
Liverpool twice lost out on the title to Man City by a point in 2019 and 2022, but these occasions fall outside of the nine-year period for which the charges relate to. Therefore, those crowns are not at risk of being stripped from City.
