Why Man City's cheating scandal could help them win Champions League -- and what it would mean

• Ryan O'HanlonNov 3, 2026, 04:02 AM ET

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  Ryan O'Hanlon is a staff writer for ESPN.com. He's also the author of "Net Gains: Inside the Beautiful Game's Analytics Revolution."

It has been over a month since the Premier League announced that Manchester City had been found guilty on 114 different charges of cheating the league's financial rules and obstructing the investigation into their potential cheating of the league's financial rules.

And ... we're still just sitting in limbo. Man City continue to play and win most of their matches, while none of us know what any of it really means.

They could be competing for another title. They could be wasting our time with meaningless matches that are about to get voided from the season. They could actually be in the middle of a relegation battle from a points deduction.

It's worth emphasizing: We're talking about the team that's currently in second place in the most popular league for the world's most popular sport -- and we don't know the stakes of any of the games they're playing! A speedy resolution -- or at least, a speedy resolution before the inevitable appeals process -- is necessary.

But until then, we're left to ponder the nature of reality in the wholly made-up structures of a made-up sport, and we're left to theorize about what might come next. So, theorize we will.

Given how harsh the language and the verdict were against City and -- how forceful City have been in their denials of their documented wrongdoing -- it seems likely at this point that the club will be relegated from the Premier League. Somehow, some way.

So, let's say that happens. You know what could also happen? Manchester City could win the Champions League.

Frankly, if they do get relegated from the Premier League via a massive points deduction or whatever other means soon, City might be even more likely to win the Champions League than they currently are. Sportsbooks, right now, have them as the sixth favorites -- after Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Arsenal, Bayern Munich, and Real Madrid -- with implied odds of about 10% to lift the European Cup.

So, then, let's say that both of those things happen: Manchester City get relegated from the Premier League, and Manchester City win the UEFA Champions League. If they did complete the dubious double, what would happen next?

How Manchester City could win the Champions League

I'm not so sure what Man City's relegation would look like in practice. But in a sense, it doesn't really matter.

I mean, it does matter. If City are given, say, a 100-point deduction or something, then the rest of the season means nothing to them. They'd still have to play games, but the stakes of those games would be no different than a situation in which the Premier League announced that City were no longer in the league and would play no more games for the rest of the season.

Both situations have all kinds of knock-on effects. If City are forced to play the rest of the season, then what about the teams that had to play City before they had nothing to play for? Is it fair for half of the league to get two games against a team that isn't trying and the other half to get only one?

But if the league just expels City and vacates all of their previous matches, then there's the problem of the lost attendance revenues for all of the Premier League teams that didn't get to play their home matches against City. That's probably an easier problem to solve but still a problem nonetheless.

However, in either scenario, we'd land here: Around 100% of Manchester City's focus would shift to the Champions League.

Maybe it wouldn't fully be 100% because they could still theoretically qualify for the Conference or Europa League through winning the Carabao or FA Cup if they're allowed to compete in those competitions. And qualifying for the Europa League while also getting relegated means they'd have an opportunity to bounce right back up into the Premier League and the Champions League if they then got promoted and won the 2027 Europa League, which they would be favorites to win -- even with the departure of a number of key players.

Those cups have so few games, though, that the point still stands: Almost all of Man City's energy would be put toward winning the Champions League.

Now, there are potential means for UEFA to attempt to expel City from their competitions, too, but given that City already had a UEFA ban overturned by an appeals court six years ago, I'm not sure how likely that would be. Remember: The Premier League's ruling of Man City's guilt applies only to the Premier League.

(You've probably heard some City supporters point to the 2020 victory over UEFA as proof of the club's innocence; it's not. They won the appeal because the court said most of violations were "time-barred," or too far in the past for UEFA to still enforce their punishment. They weren't exonerated of wrongdoing.)

So, if City are close to fully focused on the Champions League -- either because they're playing a bunch of academy kids and backups to see out the Premier League season, or because there are no other games to play -- then that would have to increase their chances of winning the Champions League, right?

We know that Premier League teams are, on average, adversely affected when they add the extra European matches to their schedule, so would not the inverse be true? Wouldn't the removal of Premier League games improve a team's performance in Europe?

The back-to-back titles of Paris Saint-Germain seem to suggest as much. Over the past two complete domestic seasons, the PSG outfield starter who has played the most league minutes is Vitinha, at 4,161. Among all outfield players across the Big Five leagues, that would rank ... 426th.

Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk led all players with 6,750 minutes played. Here's where some City players land: Antoine Semenyo was fourth with 6,398 minutes, Marc Guéhi was 14th with 6,209 minutes, Erling Haaland played about 5,700 minutes, and seven other City players featured more often than Vitinha.

While it's debatable how big of an advantage this is, there is one clear way it does provide an edge: Your best players are less likely to get hurt, so you're more likely to have your first-choice 11 featuring in the most important matches of the season.

Manchester City are still unlikely to win the Champions League (because no one is likely to win the Champions League this season), but this situation would have to make them more likely to win the Champions League. Based on the current odds, I'd feel comfortable saying that if City were relegated from the Premier League next week, they should move ahead of Real Madrid and become the fifth-most-likely team to win it all.

What if Man City got relegated and qualified for the Champions League?

The most similar situation we've seen to a potential City relegation was what happened to Juventus in 2006 after the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal.

Juventus had just won Serie A with 91 points -- 15 more than second-place Inter Milan. Per the Club Elo ratings, they were the third-best team in the world after Chelsea and Barcelona. At the time, they were also the third-richest club in the world after Real Madrid and Manchester United.

City are currently fourth in the Elo ratings, and they published the sixth-highest revenues in the most recently accounted for year. The club sits in pretty much the same chair that Juventus were kicked out of back in 2006.

Should the Man City saga force changes to the Premier League's PSR rules?

After being relegated, Juventus lost the following players, priced at the following transfer fees:

• 24-year-old striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic: Inter Milan, €24.8 million
• 30-year-old midfielder Emerson: Real Madrid, €16.0 million
• 29-year-old fullback Gianluca Zambrotta: Barcelona, €14.0 million
• 30-year-old midfielder Patrick Vieira: Inter Milan, €9.5 million
• 27-year-old winger Adrian Mutu: Fiorentina, €8.0 million
• 32-year-old center back Fabio Cannavaro: Real Madrid, €7.0 million
• 34-year-old center back Lilian Thuram: Barcelona, €5.0 million

Yes, transfer fees were way lower back then. Also, yes, teams still hadn't really figured out how the age curve worked.

Essentially, Juventus had 10 players who started at least 20 Serie A games in 2005-06, and seven of them left the club after they were relegated. Juve lost both of their starting center backs along with one of the fullbacks, their two starting central midfielders, one of their starting forwards and a starting winger.

If we applied the same amount of turnover across the same positions to City, then it would look something like this: Rúben Dias, Marc Guéhi and Josko Gvardiol would all be gone. Elliot Anderson and Enzo Fernández? Bye-bye. Rayan Cherki and Erling Haaland? Also out.

But the one big difference in the two situations would be if City did win the Champions League this season, and thus qualified for next season's Champions League.

If they did, then perhaps certain players could be persuaded to stay because they'd still get to compete in the top club competition, and they'd likely spend only one season in the second-division Championship. Even with all of that turnover, Juventus easily won Serie B with 85 points and a still-league-record 28 wins.

Plus, winning the Champions League would be worth around €170 million in revenue based on PSG's recent hauls. Except ... that's not close to making up what City would lose were they relegated down one division.

The broadcast revenue differential between the Premier League and the Championship would be closer to €300 million. Plus, the club would likely lose a ton of commercial revenue, presuming that all of their current commercial revenue is fair value, because (1) they'd be a toxic brand, and (2) they'd no longer be in the Premier League.

As my colleague Mark Ogden wrote about last month, it's hard to even imagine the mechanics of the fallout from City being relegated. They have the second-highest wage bill in the world after Real Madrid, per estimates from FBref. They wouldn't be able to afford anything close to that roster in the Championship, but Real Madrid and PSG are pretty much the only two clubs who could or would be willing to pay the same wages that City are currently paying.

Plus, you'd have to assume that most of the City players have some kind of clause in their current contracts regarding relegation because every current player signed their deal after the Premier League announced the 115 charges back in 2023. The players -- and their agents -- should have known this day was coming.

Based on FBref's estimates, if City moved on from those seven previously mentioned players, they would save around €130 million in wages. Combine that with the Champions League-winning revenue and you get close to making up the gap in lost broadcast revenue from dropping down a division.

But it gets more complicated for City. Not only would it be hard for those seven players to find new clubs that would pay them as much as they're currently getting paid, every other club in the world would know that City need to move on from these players.

City would have no leverage in negotiating transfer fees, especially because only a handful of clubs could afford the salaries of the players to begin with. Per Transfermarkt, the seven players Juventus moved on from had an estimated combined transfer value of €135 million at the time, but they moved for €84 million combined. That's a 60% discount.

We'd likely see something similar with City's dealings this summer -- or even this winter. And that, too, is a problem because of the strange way in which transfer fees are accounted for. Depending on how long the player has been at the club, City might have to take an accounting loss if the player moves on for a smaller fee than they paid to acquire him.

If City do win the Champions League this season and qualify for next season's tournament, it will make a difference. And it will make them even bigger villains than they are right now -- can you imagine anyone rooting for them as they run through the different rounds of the knockout stages? Depending on the draw, we could find ourselves in a situation where most of the world is rooting for ... Real Madrid and Jose Mourinho?

That would add just another strange emotional layer to what has been one of the strangest months in the modern history of European soccer. After years of spending pretty much whatever they wanted to acquire the best talent in the world, City will soon find themselves in a situation where they need all of the money they can get.

Winning their second Champions League would bring in a lot more cash over the next two seasons -- but it still won't be enough to change the fundamental reality: If Manchester City do get relegated, most of their most famous players won't be playing for Manchester City next season.