Manchester City could face a deduction of between 40 and 60 points if they are convicted of some of the serious allegations levelled against them, a football finance specialist previously warned. City and the Premier League are still awaiting the verdict on 115 alleged financial violations by the club spanning 2009 to 2018.

The proceedings into City’s alleged infringements of the league’s financial regulations wrapped up in December 2024 after a 12-week tribunal, but the independent commission has still to publish its findings. City have denied any misconduct and are believed to be optimistic about exoneration.

Some 15 months have now gone by since the tribunal and the commission continues its deliberations. Football finance specialist Kieran Maguire has monitored the case extensively and claims that an estimated 500,000 items of evidence were submitted by the defence and prosecution throughout the tribunal.

Meanwhile, Chelsea have received a suspended transfer ban after self-reporting breaches of illegal payments under a previous ownership, discovered during their takeover in 2022.

Maguire anticipates a verdict on City should arrive within the coming months, with the club and the league expected to receive 24 hours’ advance warning before its public release. He suggests that while forecasting the outcome is unfeasible, examining recent precedents demonstrates just how momentous the result could prove, should it be unfavourable to City.

“The Premier League cannot relegate Manchester City to League One or League Two because that’s an EFL decision and Manchester City have not had any charges proven against them by the EFL, so therefore it has to be a points deduction,” Maguire explained on The Overlap Fan Debate.

“If we take a look at precedents, we’ve had Everton and Nottingham Forest with six and four-point deductions for a single offence covering a three-year period. The accusations against Manchester City cover a nine-year period, so it’s far bigger. The numbers involved, we’re not certain about, but they’re likely to be quite significant.

“So I think you have to add a zero to what we’ve seen from Forest and Everton, so somewhere between a 40 and 60-point deduction would, I think, on merit, be consistent with what we’ve seen from other decisions on logic. If they want to go further then we don’t know the severity.”

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“In the cases of both Forest and Everton, they were to do with FFP [Financial Fair Play] purely. The accusations against Manchester City are why it’s taking so long. Corporate fraud is a very serious accusation. The board of directors would have to go. How can you be in a meeting room with other members of the Premier League and the Premier League itself, of whom you’re a shareholder, with this accusation being proven?

“If you take a look at what happened with Juventus in Serie A, their board had to resign when they were claiming things about player wages that were proven to be untrue. I think there’s an honesty thing here, if Manchester City are proven to be guilty. And that could mean a complete restructure of the club.”

There has been considerable exasperation surrounding the postponement, which stems from the intricate nature of the case and the requirement for the three-person panel to convene jointly.

“[Judging] by the cases similar to a fraud case, I think we’re probably into the final reaches of getting a decision,” Maguire continued. “I think part of the challenge is that, because there are three very senior people on the call for making that final judgement, getting those three together at the same time is actually very difficult and that has delayed the case.

“It should be resolved in the next few months, but we’ve said this before. But there’s an awful lot of evidence to go through and the charges are very very serious so you’ve got to have enough evidence.”