Gary Neville says removing Man City's owners is the 'ONLY fair' punishment after 'chilling' guilty verdict

From the Newshound archive · first published 1 October 2026.

Manchester City were found guilty on every charge by an independent commission, which concluded the club had used 'sham' contracts and 'disguised schemes' to artificially inflate revenue by £830 million over eight seasons. Gary Neville described the verdict as "chilling" and said it poses grave consequences for English football. He argues that fines, points deductions and stripping titles, however significant, would fall short of adequate punishment. City have until Friday 2 October to lodge an appeal.

The commission determined that City inflated club revenue through 'disguised schemes' spanning the 2009-10 to 2017-18 seasons.

Neville contends the scale of what he calls 'industrial-level financial doping' demands a penalty to match — and that only removing the current owners would constitute a genuine reckoning.

'Manchester City will recover as a football club,' Neville said, 'they'll be there long after these owners' — yet he identified owner removal as the sole consequence City's hierarchy would truly dread.