Manchester City verdict exposes deeply flawed system within English football

The Premier League's landmark ruling has found Manchester City guilty of utilising sham contracts, submitting inaccurate financial accounts, and systematically failing to co-operate with the league's multi-year inquiry. Crucially, the independent panel found some of the key defence witnesses to be so lacking in credibility that their testimonies were effectively dismissed as outright falsehoods.

I'm not saying this with the benefit of hindsight, because it's a point I've made several times before, but wasn't it all a bit obvious? The notion that Manchester City organically generated a higher commercial turnover than Manchester United defied logic.

Man U had spent over half a century accumulating vast global riches, extending its commercial empire during the success of the Ferguson era. For Manchester City to leapfrog that institutional wealth in a fraction of the time beggared belief.

At its core, Man City's financial engineering was motivated by an attempt to level a structurally uneven playing field, and I think this prompts a deeper question as to what motivated them to act in they way they did. For decades, English football has been dominated by a small, elite cartel.

What Manchester City did was not merely level the playing field; they completely distorted it. By misrepresenting an estimated almost £900 million, the club bypassed regulatory guardrails to help secure trophy after trophy.

Of course, this crisis is not isolated to domestic regulators. Reports elsewhere claim that European football's governing body, where Gianni Infantino was UEFA Secretary General from 2009 to 2016, was aware of these financial anomalies years ago.

Instead of robust enforcement, UEFA allegedly turned a blind eye, such that this systemic failure raises uncomfortable, lingering questions not just for Manchester City, but for other state-backed giants, including back-to-back European champions Paris Saint-Germain and their Qatari ownership. With guilt established, the focus shifts to the impending punishment if/when the appeal fails.

To maintain the integrity of the game, the sanction must be draconian. The only fitting penalty is surely a forced relegation, something that will send Manchester City into freefall down the pyramid, providing the EFL is willing to entertain the notion of course.

What's really interesting is when you make comparisons, whether that's with Manchester United, with total debts of over a £billion, and yet still able to flex their financial muscle, or with Newcastle United, a club who haven't cheated and yet still plundered their first trophy in a very long time, some 18 months ago. And here is what's so absurd.