Football finance expert Kieran Maguire believes that Premier League clubs could be considering a settlement with Manchester City over their alleged wrongdoings, especially given that any punishment could end up taking “years” to enforce.

City were found guilty of breaching 114 Premier League rules by an independent commission last month, as the panel found them to have used ‘sham’ sponsorship deals to boost they earnings by around £900million between 2009 and 2018.

The club have now appealed that verdict, as they continue to insist upon their innocence, and claim they have ‘irrefutable evidence’ to prove it, in the form of documents showing that the sponsorship funds came from the Abu Dhabi government rather from their owners.

The initial three-man commission has already seen this evidence and ‘concluded it was an explanation that the club had concocted well after the event in an attempt to conceal the realities of the Disguised Funding Scheme’, but City hope an all-new panel will rule in their favour.

Possible punishments include fines, transfer bans, points deductions, Premier League expulsion and titles being stripped, while the owners could also be removed by the Independent Football Regulator.

But with The I Paper reporting that City are prepared to ‘exhaust every legal avenue’ it’s claimed that while the Premier League wants a punishment to be applied before the end of the 2026/27 season, a “worst case scenario” of City lifting the Premier League trophy while the case rumbles on “cannot be ruled out”.

The Premier League rulebook says the appeal should take 12 weeks, with 30 days then set aside for the judgement, meaning a verdict by the end of January. However, Maguire does not think that is a realistic timeframe at all.

“I think the uncertainty will go on for a very long time. Not just months but years,” he said.

James Severn, member of the London Solicitor Litigation Association (LSLA) and partner at Pennington Manches Cooper, also claims the January deadline is a “stretch – to put it mildly”.

He added: “My instinct is that it will probably take longer given the complexity of the case.

“When you look at the original decision, they are referencing a 150-page index and thousands of documents so I wouldn’t be expecting something super quick from the appeal board.

“Everyone will be keen to deal with it as quickly as it can reasonably be achieved but they will all be desperate to make sure whatever is done is done thoroughly so it could take a very long time, to be frank,” Severn says.

“Panels don’t like to be appealed – and they especially don’t like appeals against them to be upheld – so they will be doing this extremely carefully, especially given how high-profile this case is. They will be leaving no stone unturned rather than rushing things through.”

City ‘noise’ and ‘mess’ sparks shock ‘settlement’ talk

City can appeal the sanctions after appealing the verdict and can then request arbitration if they feel the process is flawed, before taking the case to the High Court.

And Maguire believes City are ready or a “long and expensive fight” which could create a rift between the other Premier League clubs and force some sort of settlement.

“A lawyer friend told me that City have already started the process of creating noise and mess around the process,” Maguire says.

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“If you look at what’s happened already it appears they are gearing up for a very long and expensive fight over this.

“Is the aim to persuade the Premier League to go to its members and say ‘This could cost us as an organisation £25m-a-year to fight it, do you want us to negotiate a settlement?’

“For the clubs like Ipswich, Sunderland, Brentford, they might see that money as coming out of their bottom line and – potentially – this isn’t really their fight because they were never trying to be competitive with Manchester City.

“The pressure has really been applied by two or three clubs who lost out on trophies or Champions League places. If this approach splits the Premier League then things get complicated.”