Premier League: A verdade incômoda sobre esta temporada

Last Updated on Outubro 22, 2026 4:50 pm by Erwin Noguera

Manchester City have won all seven of their matches. They are top of the Premier League with twenty-one points and a goal difference of plus twelve.

An independent commission found them liable on 114 of 115 charges last month.

Both of those things are true, and neither has been resolved. No sanction has been decided. No sanctions hearing has been scheduled. City deny wrongdoing, have lodged an appeal, and are entitled to play while it is heard.

So, the league continues, and nobody in it can tell you what the final table will mean. One rival club executive put it to reporters more plainly than any official statement has: nobody is sure what they are playing for, or whether the final positions will stand.

That is the uncomfortable truth about this season, and it is worth setting out carefully: what has been established, what has not, and what the people competing against City think.

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What Has Actually Been Decided

An independent commission upheld 114 of the 115 charges brought against Manchester City by the Premier League. The findings cover a nine-season window from 2009 to 2018, and the Premier League has described them as serious breaches of its financial regulations.

Reporting on the commission’s conclusions says the club used sponsorship arrangements whose values were topped up by the ownership, with the effect of inflating revenue by around £900 million. Those are the reported findings of the commission, not an allegation we are making.

Sources differ on the date. Some reported the decision on 25 September; at least one gives 28 September. We have not been able to reconcile them, so we note both.

What Has Not Been Decided

This is the part that is most often skipped, and it is the part that matters most.

No sanction exists.There has been no points deduction, no relegation, no transfer restriction. The commission’s decision did not carry a penalty with it.

Sanctions are a separate matter to be decided at a separate hearing, and that hearing has not been scheduled.

City lodged a formal appeal on 1 October. The club says the ruling contains “clear material errors of law, principle, and fact,” and described itself as disappointed and surprised by the findings. The appeal goes to a three-person appeal board whose decision is final. There is no recourse to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

An outcome is expected before the end of the 2026-27 season. That timing is the whole problem.

The Club’s Position

Manchester City denied wrongdoing and are contesting the findings in full.

Their appeal does not argue mitigation. It argues error: that the commission got the law, the principles, and the facts wrong. That is a maximalist position, and it is the one they have taken consistently since the charges were brought.

Reporting has also attributed internal remarks to senior club figures characterizing the verdict as an endorsement of a Premier League “conspiracy theory.” We note that this has circulated through secondary outlets rather than a club statement, and we treat it accordingly.

And on the pitch, the club has behaved like one with no case to answer.City spent in the region of £460 million in the summer transfer window (breaking their own record twice to replace a midfield) and have won every league match since.

What the Other Nineteen Clubs Are Saying

Sympathy is scarce, and the stated concern is institutional rather than personal.

Rival clubs have said they want the punishment to fit the breach, and that their larger worry is the damage being done to the image and integrity of the competition itself.

Sky Sports reported that rival clubs do not expect City to be in the Premier League next season if the appeal fails.The same reporting carries an important qualification: senior executives doubt that fifteen clubs would vote for expulsion, the threshold such a move would require.

That gap between expectation and willingness is the most revealing thing in the whole story. Nineteen clubs appear to believe the most severe outcome is deserved and simultaneously doubt it will be imposed.

The more immediate complaint is about time. Reporting sourced to the Telegraph says rivals fear the matter will not be resolved within this season. A club finishing fifth does not know whether that is fifth, or fourth.

The Range of Possible Outcomes

Nobody knows, and anyone offering you a number is projecting.

One expert projection circulating in the financial press ranges from a points deduction of fifty to sixty (which would make relegation close to certain) down to a penalty described as severe but proportionate.We are reporting that as a projection from a secondary source, not as a likely outcome, because the sanctions hearing has not been scheduled and no framework for it has been published.

The other live question is historical. If the findings stand, the titles won inside the 2009 to 2018 window become a matter for the record books. No mechanism for that has been announced either.

The Case for Carrying On

It is stronger than the mood around it suggests, and it rests on a principle rather than a loyalty.

No sanction has been imposed. A club that has been found liable, denies the findings, and has an appeal pending has not exhausted the process. Suspending a club from competition before a penalty has been determined would be a punishment applied in advance of the decision that justifies it.

Nothing in the commission’s findings concerns this season. The window is 2009 to 2018. The players on the pitch in 2026 are, with very few exceptions, not the players the findings are about.

And there is no clean alternative. Removing City mid-season would void fixtures already played, redistribute points already won, and alter the competition for nineteen other clubs in ways nobody has modelled. The least disruptive course is to finish the season and apply whatever sanction is determined afterwards.

O Caso Contra

It is also strong, and it is not really about Manchester City.

Every result this season sits on a table that may be reordered. Prize money, broadcast distributions and European qualification all flow from final positions. If a sanction lands after those are settled, the league either reopens decisions it has already made or lets them stand on a basis it has itself found to be improper.

Nineteen clubs are competing for places against a side whose eligibility for those places is unresolved. A team that misses the Champions League by a point this season, to a club later found to have breached the rules that govern spending, has a grievance that no retrospective adjustment repairs.

And the integrity argument is cumulative. The charges were brought in February 2023. The findings arrived in September 2026. The sanction has no date.A competition that takes three and a half years to reach a verdict and then cannot say when it will impose a consequence is making a statement about itself regardless of the outcome.

The Uncomfortable Truth

It is not that Manchester City are top of the league. It is that nobody can tell you what top of the league being currently means.

The facts, as they stand: 114 of 115 charges upheld, covering 2009 to 2018. An appeal lodged on 1 October alleging material errors. A three-person board whose ruling will be final. No sanction, and no scheduled hearing to determine one. Seven matches, seven wins, twenty-one points, first place.

Every one of those is accurate, and they do not fit together.

The season will be played to its conclusion because there is no lawful way to do otherwise, and the verdict on what it was worth will arrive afterwards, from a panel of three people, with no further appeal available to anyone.

In the meantime, the fixtures continue, the table updates, and Enzo Maresca’s side have not dropped a point.Arsenal is three behind with the same number of games played.Brighton has the best goal difference in England at plus eighteen and sit third.

That is the competition as it exists. Whether it is the competition that will be recorded is a question nobody involved can answer, and that is the part that should make everyone uncomfortable.