English football is awaiting the decisions against Manchester City after an independent commission found that the club had breached the Premier League’s financial regulations between the 2009-2010 and 2017-2018 seasons.
Calciopoli and Juventus sanctions
The case has revived debate over compliance with financial rules and ensuring a level playing field, while also reopening the record of previous sports sanctions involving relegation, stripped titles, points deductions, fines and exclusion from competitions. Among the most prominent precedents was the Calciopoli scandal in Italian football, which resulted in Juventus being relegated to the second tier and stripped of its 2005 and 2006 league titles, as well as having points deducted.
The sanctions followed the involvement of club officials, led by sporting director Luciano Moggi, in influencing referee appointments in 2006. Points deductions also affected Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina. Criminal cases against Moggi were later closed by the courts because of the statute of limitations, meaning the expiry of the legal period for prosecution, but this did not overturn the sporting rulings.
McLaren’s record fine in Spygate
The sporting courts therefore upheld his lifetime ban from working in sport, while Juventus’ stripped titles and the other historic sanctions imposed on the club remained officially in force. In the Formula One World Championship, McLaren faced one of the largest financial penalties in sporting history in a case known as Spygate.
It was fined 100 million dollars and excluded from the constructors’ world championship after confidential information about Ferrari’s 2007 car was leaked in roughly 800 pages. The case began when Nigel Stepney, a Ferrari employee, leaked the information to his friend Mike Coughlan, McLaren’s chief designer.
The scheme was exposed after Coughlan’s wife took the documents to a local shop to have them copied, prompting the owner to become suspicious of their contents. As a Ferrari fan, he alerted officials at the Italian team, setting in motion the proceedings that led to McLaren’s sanctions. Severe penalties also reached cricket.
Durham relegation and cricket financial sanctions
In 2016, the England and Wales Cricket Board relegated Durham to the second tier and deducted 48 points from its tally following a financial crisis caused by heavy spending to develop its ground to host international matches. The measures also included points deductions in limited-overs competitions and the removal of the right to host Test matches.
At the beginning of 2020, the league confirmed their relegation to the second tier for the 2020-2021 season after they failed to reduce their wage bill to the required level.
Manchester City’s historic precedent in 1906
Manchester City itself has a previous disciplinary case dating back to 1906, when the Football Association found it guilty of breaching players’ payment regulations, rules intended to protect fair competition and a level playing field. The case resulted in 17 players being banned and two club officials being banned for life, while other officials were suspended for one year.
In another spying case, Southampton were excluded last May from the play-offs for promotion to the Premier League, denying them potential earnings of at least 200 million pounds, equivalent to about 256 million dollars, over three seasons if they had been promoted.
The decision came after the club admitted three spying charges, including one relating to Middlesbrough before the two sides’ play-off meeting. Southampton were also docked four points from their tally that season.
