Is the club losing its identity?

The financial breaches case against Manchester City has entered a more sensitive phase over the past few hours.

England's Independent Football Regulator (IFR) has revealed it holds the power to hit City with further penalties.

City have appealed the ruling against them. Yet comments from regulator chairman David Kogan have opened the door to measures that go beyond sporting and financial sanctions, reaching as far as the future of the club's ownership itself. Kogan stressed the regulator will not rush into any decision before the appeal results become clear.

Unprecedented development in the City case

The Goal website carried Kogan's remarks on "The Rest Is Football" podcast, where he set out the limits of the body's powers. He stressed that it could force Manchester City's owners to give up the club if it judged the way the club was run to fall short of the required standards.

Talk of specific measures right now was premature, Kogan insisted, given Manchester City's ongoing appeal. "We have the power to require the owners to step away from the club if we believe they are running it in a way that is not efficient, fair or honest," he said.

Could the owners simply refuse to walk away? His response was decisive: "No, no, no. We have absolute authority to do that."

Kogan also weighed the prospect of the body launching an independent investigation into Manchester City's conduct. He would not pass judgement in advance, he explained, not before every aspect of the case became clear.

He added: "I will not allow myself to be pressured into taking any position on this matter before we get answers to all those questions. After that, we will have to decide whether we will open our own investigation, reach a conclusion on it, and determine the measures we will take. Pre-empting these steps would be a grave mistake."

Course of the investigations and the conviction

An independent commission recently concluded that Manchester City circumvented Premier League regulations over nine seasons. According to the investigation's findings, the club struck sham commercial arrangements that helped inflate revenues or reduce costs by more than £900 million.

The commission also found that City made concerted efforts to obstruct the Premier League's investigation into those arrangements, leaving the club facing the prospect of unprecedented sanctions.

City have lodged a formal appeal against the initial ruling. The case now awaits the outcome of that step before the next course of action is determined.