Manchester City to Be Relegated?

 This guy thinks it's possible.

Geologists know that sometimes what appears to be an earthquake is only a prelude to an even greater seismic event. That is worth remembering amid the tremors of the decision to dock Everton 10 points for breaching the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR). Because for Manchester City and Chelsea a quake of a far larger magnitude is potentially looming.

City, after all, have been charged with more than 100 breaches of Premier League rules over multiple years. Chelsea are under investigation for alleged financial wrongdoing between 2012 and 2019 – and, as the Guardian revealed this week, secret payments worth tens of millions of pounds appear to have been made by companies owned by Roman Abramovich.

Everton are the first club to be punished by the league for breaking profitability and sustainability rules, and the leading sports lawyer Catherine Forshaw believes that City and Chelsea will be fearing much more severe punishments – including potential relegation.

As I understand it, the charges against City are mainly about off the books payments to players and staff, whereas with Chelsea it's more about off the books infusions of cash.  In both cases, we're talking about far more serious infringements than Everton's.  Financial Fair Play has been a joke for a long time--Wenger bitched about that for years--but all of a sudden the Premier League is taking it seriously.  Juventus was relegated, but that was for match fixing.  Had City been docked points last season, Arsenal would be the reigning champion now.  It could have happened.  And anything can happen this year.

I don't really understand how FFP is supposed to work and why it is suddenly relevant.  But the basic concept is fairly simple:  the League doesn't want a moneybags owner to waltz in and buy championships with non-football money.  Abramovich and abu Dhabi did just that with Chelsea and City, starting 15 years ago.  It's weird that they were rewarded with multiple championships (all earned on the pitch) and now the hammer might fall.