Peter Schmeichel and Jaap Stam both want Manchester City punished after the independent panel found the club guilty of 114 charges related to breaches of Premier League financial rules between 2009-10 and 2017-18. They just do not agree on how far that punishment should go. Schmeichel wants City to stay in the Premier League but start on -25 points for every year they are in the league over the next five years. Stam wants the titles stripped.

Schmeichel's sanctions

Schmeichel went further than a standard points deduction. Speaking to manchestereveningnews.co.uk, he called for a five-year transfer ban, a big fine and for the ownership to be forced to sell the club. He also said bans should follow for everyone involved and added, "Take the titles away or let them keep the titles. I don't think it matters one way or the other."

The scale of the punishment he wants is severe, but it is still built around keeping City in the Premier League. That is the key difference between him and Stam, who wants the trophies removed altogether.

The titles argument

Stam told manchestereveningnews.co.uk that City should be stripped of their titles because they have been cheating in getting them. He backed the need for punishment in principle, but his line is simpler and harsher than Schmeichel's version.

The case is still subject to appeal, so none of this is an official sanction. That leaves the debate in a strange place, because the football has kept moving while the verdict continues to hang over the club.

City's 3-0 win at Liverpool at Anfield, with second-half strikes from Erling Haaland, Jeremy Doku and Rayan Cherki, only added to that split reaction. Gary Neville said on Sky Sports that the performance deserved praise, but also noted that there is "that thing in the back of your mind" and warned of a "huge cloud" if the guilty verdicts are confirmed in January or February.

Imre Varadi offered a lighter angle for BBC coverage of the same day. He said the inflatable bananas at Anfield brought "a lot of fun back into the game", recalling the old Maine Road craze from the 1980s. Varadi was nicknamed Imre Banana during his two-year spell with City in the late 1980s, when he scored 26 goals in 65 appearances.

The punishment talk is not going away while the appeal process runs its course, and the Anfield win has only made the contrast more awkward. City now sit on 18 points from 6 Premier League matches with a +11 goal difference, and the next stage of the case is still to come.

Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 2 outlets. How we work →