Manchester City have been found guilty of engaging in than £900 million worth of financial doping over nearly a decade and then of trying to obstruct investigations into their misdeeds, with a Premier League independent commission finally delivering a verdict years in the making late last week.
It’s a ruling confirming what has long been believed but not provably known: that in an effort to use City as a sportswashing front owners Abu Dhabi cheated systematically, undermining the integrity of the Premier
League and beating out clubs playing by the rules to countless titles, trophies, and qualification spots.
Liverpool weren’t the only club impacted, but as the club often closest to City for much of the past decade under former manager Jürgen Klopp, if it wasn’t from City the Reds would have at least a few more league titles to their name—and Klopp has previously said if City were ever stripped of their titles and they were given to Liverpool, he’d be there for the parade.
“Of course I’ve heard about that but I haven’t given it much thought,” Klopp said this week when asked about the verdict ahead of Germany’s Nations League tie against Serbia on Thursday. “I also said if there’s ever a parade I’d come, but I can only wait and see. I have big respect for Pep Guardiola and City’s style of football—they were a top class opponent for us.
“If any sanctions are handed out we’ll have wait and see, and I don’t really have any strong feelings about it. It’s not like I need to have won the English title a few more times. I’m absolutely fine with what we achieved at Liverpool. We fought hard on the pitch, I can’t really say more than that.”
City still have time to challenge the verdict and are expected to, which would further delay potential punishment. On that front, there have been signals that retrospective punishment and the awarding of league or cup titles to other clubs is unlikely and that City are more likely to face punishments that impact them moving forward.
