How to save the Premier League: Man City scandal must persuade elite to share more, not less

Manchester City on Sunday is one of the most anticipated games in Premier League history. It is likely to be one of the most watched.

For all the worthy concern for "the product" this week, crisis and scandal sell in bucketloads. The spectacle of City's players emerging into an Anfield bearpit for their first match since that brutal Premier League verdict dropped will make the footballing world stop.

"We don't even really know what this means" will not prevent people from watching. Emotions from rage to morbid curiosity will capture eyeballs across the globe.

The independent panel's ruling that City are guilty of all charges related to serious financial breaches of competition rules between 2009/10 and 2017/18 is now in a holding pattern until the appeal section of the process runs its course. That should be concluded before the end of January at the latest, although a sanction - imaginations are running wild in this regard - could arrive first.

Once the vitriol, thrown into focus by international break tedium, and the spectacle of Anfield have dissipated, the wholly unsatisfactory weirdness of the whole situation is likely to bite. The hope is that wider conversations about the future wellbeing of the league can have room to breathe and become a little more level-headed.