Data Reveals Eight Clubs Who Could Have Benefited From Manchester City Verdict
Most of the debate after the Manchester City verdict has been about stolen titles. The bigger story may be the European places.
SportsBoom removed City from every season covered by the case, and eight clubs would have gained Champions League or Europa League qualification.
An independent commission has found Manchester City guilty of 114 of the 115 Premier League charges, according to reports.
The Premier League has not yet published the ruling, no sanction has been set, and City are expected to appeal.
The charges cover nine seasons, from 2009/10 to 2017/18. Much of the reaction has focused on the three titles City won in that period and on who would have lifted the trophy instead.
The financial damage to rivals probably runs deeper than that, though. City also denied other clubs top four finishes, and the Champions League prize money that comes with them.
So we asked a different question. If City had been removed from the table in each of those nine seasons, who would have qualified for Europe?
The answer: Everton would have gained five European campaigns, Tottenham four Champions League places, and six other clubs at least one qualification each.
How we worked it out
For each season from 2009/10 to 2017/18, we took City out of the final Premier League table.
Every club below them moved up one place.
We then applied the European qualification rules in force that year, including the rules on reallocating domestic cup places and on Champions League holders.
That last point matters more than it sounds. England’s allocation changed several times in this period, and cup places that City or other qualified clubs had already used passed down the league table.
The full list of assumptions is set out at the end of this article.
Season by season
With City removed, at least one club gains a European place in every one of the nine seasons. In eight of them, a club also moves up into the Champions League.
In 2009/10, City finished fifth, so removing them changes nothing at the top. Everton move into the last Europa League place, because both domestic cup places had already passed down the table to Aston Villa and Liverpool.
The 2011/12 case is the most striking. In reality, Tottenham finished fourth and lost their Champions League place when Chelsea, who finished sixth, won the competition. With City gone, Spurs finish third. That puts them out of reach, and fourth placed Newcastle drop into the Europa League instead.
In 2013/14, City’s League Cup place would have passed down the table to Manchester United. United spent the following season without European football for the first time in a generation.
The biggest losers
Everton have the strongest claim to having been hurt. They would have gained five European campaigns in nine seasons. That includes a place in the 2014/15 Champions League after finishing fifth under Roberto Martínez in 2013/14.
Tottenham would have gained four Champions League qualifications: 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2014/15. Before Mauricio Pochettino’s side made fourth place routine, Spurs repeatedly finished just outside it, and City were often the reason.
Arsenal would have extended their run of 19 consecutive Champions League campaigns. In reality it ended in 2016/17, when they finished fifth and dropped into the Europa League.
Liverpool (twice), Manchester United (twice), Chelsea, Swansea City and Southampton each gain at least one qualification.
For Swansea, a Europa League place would have followed the club’s highest Premier League finish.
The money is harder to measure than the places. Champions League participation was worth tens of millions of pounds a season in this period, and Manchester United are already reported to be assessing the financial impact of City’s breaches.
