Should Manchester City be stripped of their Premier League titles?

Manchester City has had a 2-year ban on competing in UEFA competitions as well as a hefty fine of 30 million Euros imposed by UEFA due to the now-infamous “Project Longbow”. Yet, that could be the least of their worries as Jose Mourinho jokingly said: “The team that finished second in 2018 is going to be champions, yes or no?”. Of course, the team that finished second back then in 2018 was, of course, Manchester United led by Jose himself. While Jose was simply making a joke, could the Premier League strip Manchester City of their past 4 Premier League titles and perhaps, more importantly, should they strip Manchester City of their past Premier League titles.

There is currently no precedent set within the Premier League about stripping away a title from a team due to financial misconduct but in other sports such as Rugby Union where Premiership Rugby team Saracens broke the salary cap were heavily penalised with relegation and a heavy fine.

In the Serie A, Juventus were relegated and had the 2005-2006 title removed from them and awarded to the team that had finished second which was Inter Milan as a result of the Calciopoli.

Now, it is hard to see the Premier League being able to punish City by relegating them into the Championship as the Football League and the Premier League are two separate entities.

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Consequently, unless some sort of agreement was reached between these two bodies of power, the outcome of City being relegated is highly unlikely.

However, in the hypothetical situation that an agreement was reached between the Premier League and the Football League to somehow have Manchester City play in the Championship the following season, there would be widespread chaos in the Championship.

City is most certainly going to challenge UEFA’s decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, so particularly those teams in third will be wandering “are we automatically promoted to the Premier League or are we going to have to play in the play-offs to get promoted?”

This seems all to similar to the debacle in the Premier League where potentially the team in 5th could secure a place in the Champions League if Manchester City finish in the Top 4 this season.

Now, the far more interesting dilemma is that the Premier League finishes their independent investigation into Project Longbow and find that Man City have seriously breached Financial Fair Play[FFP]…

Do they take the step of removing the Premier League titles that City won during 2012 to 2018?

If they do, it would mean Manchester United will actually have won a Premier League title for the first time since Sir Alex Ferguson.

If the 2017-2018 Premier League title is awarded to them in lieu of City’s financial misconduct if that was to happen, no doubt Mourinho will be harping about that for years to come.

Even more incredible is the possibility that Liverpool will have won a league title, the whole time they’ve been moaning about the title drought they’ve had, they may have actually won the title.

It may provide closure for Steven Gerrard after his horrible slip led to Liverpool losing to Chelsea, paving the way for City to win the League.

Perhaps, more importantly, one of the best footballers of all time, Steven Gerrard may finally be able to add the elusive Premier League medal to his trophy cabinet.

As for whether City should have their titles removed from them, the answer for me is no.

They have broken the rules but having more money to buy players does not matter if you are unable to gel them into a collective unit in which Pep did in the 2017-2018 season, where City became the centurions.

Unlike, Juventus in the Calciopoli scandal, there was no direct impact on the results of games, City players still had to go out there and get the win without any advantage.

A more suitable punishment would be a points deduction that is strong enough to send the message that breaching FFP is a serious matter but not overboard like removing the Premier League title from Manchester City.

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So, what do you think? Should Manchester City be stripped of their Premier League titles?

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