Man City Case: Appeal Timetable Set as Execs Weigh Early Suspension; City Win 3-0 at Anfield Anyway
The Man City saga now has a clock on it. Sky Sports' Kaveh Solhekol — who opens with "It is the biggest scandal in the history of English football" — laid out the timetable after City lodged its appeal at 7pm on Thursday, Oct. 1:
- Under new Premier League rules, the appeal must be heard within 12 weeks of lodging — a maximum five-day hearing before a new three-person panel, finished by mid-December.
- The appeal verdict goes to the parties within 30 days of the hearing ending — putting a ruling around January.
- The sanctions hearing runs in parallel — the same three-person panel that heard the 42-day 2024 case and delivered the guilty verdict will decide punishment, and can do so while the appeal proceeds.
- Most legal experts expect City to lose the appeal: no new evidence or witnesses are permitted, and the original judgment "is so damning." If City lose, they're expected to challenge the whole process in the High Court — and expulsion, if imposed, would still require a vote of the league's member clubs (a minimum of fifteen "yes" votes, per ESPN).
"Although City claim they have 'a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence' to prove their innocence, most legal experts expect City to lose the appeal because the judgment is so damning." — Sky Sports
The pressure is building in public. Per Football365, senior Premier League executives have discussed whether they can suspend City from competition before the appeal and sanction verdicts land — after what was called the "Anfield farce." On Sunday, City — the club's first match since the verdict — beat Liverpool 3-0 at Anfield (Haaland, Doku and Cherki goals, with the game turned by Ryan Gravenberch's red card just after the hour), ending Liverpool's unbeaten start. Gary Neville admitted it's "quite hard" to praise City's play "because you are imagining basically if these guilty verdicts are confirmed in January or February then Manchester City are not going to be in the position they are in and there is going to be a huge cloud hanging over the whole league."
The punditry war over sanctions is underway: Steven Gerrard says City should be stripped of titles or have asterisks attached ("Make them suffer like they've made everyone else suffer"), while Peter Schmeichel argued against relegation but for "for every year they're in the Premier League, the next five years, they start on -25 points," plus a five-year transfer ban, a big fine, and a forced sale of the club.