Manchester City may not be the only team that might be subjected to face an investigation according to leading football finance experts as Premier League clubs have become incentivized to sometimes push the rules to the limit, if not beyond. The Premier League announced on Monday it had referred a number of alleged violations by Manchester City of the competition's rules to an independent commission, with some of those dating back as far as the 2009-10 season. City, however, said that they would submit "irrefutable evidence" to support their case against the allegations. Kieran Maguire, the author of the book The Price of Football, said isolating Man City could be seen as making a "scapegoat" of the Premier League title holders, and he speculates investigators will also look closely at the finances of other EPL clubs. 

Kieran Maguire had this to add: “Certainly we have seen some clubs, in terms of the financial submissions that they've made, make fairly significant claims as to the impact, for example, that COVID had on their finances, and they've claimed that COVID cost them money in a myriad of ways, some of which have certainly raised eyebrows as far as observers are concerned. So if Manchester City are charged, you would think that Manchester City would say to the Premier League, 'well, you've investigated us and charged us, then surely you have a responsibility to do this for other clubs as well. If the Premier League don't do that, it could be seen that they're trying to make a scapegoat of Manchester City, who are unpopular with certain other elements of the English football establishment because they represent new money, and old money doesn't like new money in all aspects of life, it doesn't have to be sport.”

“Therefore you can understand why there's likely to perhaps be enthusiasm for this to move on. And that's going to be bad news for football as a whole because then it becomes who's got the best lawyers, and the best accountants, as opposed to who's got the best strikers and center-halves and midfield players,” Maguire added. City if found guilty could possibly face a range of actions including being fined, being deducted off points or relegation to a lower league. If found to have transgressed, it remains to be seen how Manchester City will come out of this saga. Football financial expert Kieran Maguire had this to add: “There's a lot of politics in English football. I think that the preferred punishment would be a points deduction, because the argument would be that if it was just a financial punishment, given the wealth of the owners, given that it is effectively a sovereign wealth fund which is the benefactors of Manchester City, that a financial penalty would not actually particularly harm the club. Therefore, you need to do something which would be seen within football itself as being a punishment, and also acting as a deterrent should any other clubs with equally benevolent owners decide to take or consider similar action.” 

“It's because it is Manchester City who have won the Premier League for four years out of the last five, who have reached the Champions League final, who have spent around about $1.3billion in building their squad, that we're having this conversation. There is jealousy, there is resentment, and there is envy. And there's not a lot of admiration, because football doesn't operate like that. Football is a very, very snarky business, where everybody's trying to put each put other clubs down. hanging the culture of football into one of ethics, morality, and sustainability is very difficult because of the nature of the people that own the clubs. They tend to be very successful in their own right. And therefore, they are used to getting their own way. And in the world of sport, you can't have 20 Premier League clubs all being successful at the same time. Therefore, they're incentivized to outmaneuver each other, and they're incentivized to sometimes push the rules to the limit, if not beyond the limit,” Maguire added.

After experiencing its own scandals in recent years, Maguire claimed that FIFA, the world's governing organization, was "unlikely to be in a position to assume a moral high ground." "And it then just simply becomes a game of whack-a-mole, as the authorities find one loophole, they bring a sticking plaster to solve it," Maguire said. "And then you're always in a room with a smarter accountant and a smarter lawyer who will come up with yet another scheme," Maguire added. It remains to be seen whether his speculations of other Premier League clubs also coming under scrutiny in the days to follow will be correct.