The Man City Punishment Primer (from The Bill Simmons Podcast 10.06.2026)
Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan dig into the Manchester City scandal — the Premier League’s independent commission found the club guilty on 114 of 115 financial charges, and nobody knows what the punishment will be. They trace the Abu Dhabi takeover in 2008, the decade of suspicious sponsorships, and why Financial Fair Play never caught them, then rank the possible penalties from a forced sale to a multi-year ban to expulsion from English football entirely. Plus the political fallout for England’s new prime minister, what happens to Haaland, and whether the club is simply too big to fail.
Listen to the original episode ↗Ready
0:00 / 32:55
Chapters
- 00:44Guilty on 114 of 115 charges
- 01:04The 2008 Abu Dhabi takeover
- 02:36Financial Fair Play, explained
- 04:15The inflated sponsorships
- 05:58Penalty scenarios: points, bans, expulsion
- 07:08England’s new prime minister steps in it
- 09:48“Lance Armstrong times fifty”
- 11:58Too big to fail?
- 14:48Ranking the possible punishments
- 16:08Do you vacate the titles?
- 22:18What happens to Haaland?
- 31:58A subversion of the competition