Man City FFP Punishment: “Very Unlikely” This Season, Says Former Advisor 😱
Man City FFP punishment is “very unlikely” to be applied this season, according to a former financial advisor to the club 🎯 The news arrived a day before City lost 2-1 at Aston Villa, and it changes everything for the title race ⚖️
Manchester City’s perfect start is over. Aston Villa beat them 2-1 at Villa Park, and Arsenal are now level on points at the top of the Premier League 😬 But the result on the pitch is almost secondary to the Man City FFP punishment bombshell that dropped on Friday.
Stefan Borson, a former financial advisor to Manchester City, told Football Insider that the prospect of the club being punished before the end of the 2026-27 campaign is “very unlikely” . His reasoning is not legal. It is logistical.
The Barrister Problem Nobody Can Solve ⚖️
Here is Borson’s explanation, stripped of the legalese: there are too many hearings and not enough barristers.
“You have to find a way to get a whole load of very busy barristers and solicitors to find time in the diary between now and, let’s say, January to have multiple hearings,” Borson said . “So hearings on process and then the actual appeal on liability, then the actual hearing on sanction, then the actual appeal on sanction. There’s a lot to go through. It’s just very unlikely that the key people are all available” .
Read that sequence again. Process hearing. Appeal on liability. Sanction hearing. Appeal on sanction. That is four separate stages, each requiring the same elite legal teams to be in the same room at the same time. The Premier League has enlisted Sir James Eadie KC, the government’s most senior civil barrister. City have Lord Pannick KC, the most prolific advocate in UK Supreme Court history . These are not people with empty calendars.
My Take: This Is a Disaster for the Premier League, Not a Relief for City 💡
Everyone will frame the Man City FFP punishment delay as good news for Manchester City. No punishment this season means no points deduction, no relegation, no asterisk on the title race. Maresca can keep telling his players to ignore the noise, and the noise will keep being delayed.
That is the surface reading. The deeper reading is that this is a nightmare for the Premier League.
The league wants this resolved. It needs this resolved. Every week that passes with City top of the table and the charges unresolved is a week the integrity of the competition is questioned. The Premier League pushed for an accelerated appeal process precisely to avoid this scenario . And now a former City employee is saying, publicly, that the acceleration will not work.
The worst-case scenario, as one high-level source told The i Paper, is that City win the Premier League title this season and the charges are still unresolved . Imagine that. City lift the trophy, Arsenal finish second, and nobody knows whether the title will be stripped in 2028.
That is not a title race. That is a hostage situation.
Arsenal’s Problem Is Bigger Than City’s 🎯
Arsenal are level on points with City. They have a game against Everton that they won comfortably. They have a squad that is deeper than it was last season. And they have a manager who has been building towards this moment for years.
But Arsenal cannot control the one variable that matters most. If City are eventually found guilty and punished with a points deduction, Arsenal might be awarded a title retrospectively. If City are cleared, Arsenal might have lost a title to a team that spent nine years inflating its revenue. Either way, Arsenal’s fate is being decided in a courtroom, not on a pitch.
Mikel Arteta has been careful not to comment on the case. He knows that every word he says will be analysed, clipped, and used against him. But privately, he must know the truth: Arsenal’s title challenge is real, but the outcome is not entirely in their hands.
What Happens Next 👀
City face Brighton in the Carabao Cup and the Premier League next week. Maresca will rotate, rest players, and insist that the only thing that matters is the next match. That is his job. That is what he has been hired to do.
But the clock is ticking. The appeal process is supposed to conclude within 12 weeks of the appeal being lodged. City lodged their appeal on October 1. That means a verdict should come by late December or early January . If it slips, the case could drag into the 2027-28 season .
And if that happens, the Premier League will have a champion it cannot confirm, a title race it cannot validate, and a legal bill it cannot justify.
The Man City FFP punishment delay is not just a City story. It is a Premier League story. And it is far from over.