Coombs
I’m not condoning their behaviour. I’m putting them back in line with other big clubs. What is the problem here. They have artificially inflated revenues through a series of sponsorships from companies tied to the state and then used that to buy a lot of expensive players. That’s the crux of it.
So you get rid of all sponsors tied to the State immediately. That means they are far below FFP. And then audit any new sponsors strictly. You then help them comply by forcing them to sell about £200m worth of players, which raises revenue immediately - straight to top line but also makes the league more equitable. You can allow them to book the revenue over two seasons for FFP purposes.
Finally you ban them from buying new players for a year as punishment.
This feels adequate. You cannot give City a financial punishment. They are clearly wealthy and don’t feel financial pain. There is an argument for docking points right now because they are still running rampant with their superior squad but I wouldn’t go further.
