Manchester City\u2019s weekend victory over Liverpool ensured there was no immediate fallout from the guilty verdict, at least on the pitch. But off it, the situation remains unresolved, with the club still appealing and maintaining that its innocence will be established.<\/p>\n
For now, no sanction has been imposed. That leaves the Premier League in a holding pattern, even though its own rules do provide a route for the most severe outcome of all: expulsion.<\/p>\n
Under Rule B6 of the league\u2019s regulations, members can vote to remove a club from the competition. The rule states: \u201cThe League may expel a Club from membership upon a special Resolution to that effect being passed by a majority of not less than three-quarters of such members as (being entitled to do so) vote by their representatives or by proxy at a General Meeting of which notice specifying the intention to propose the Resolution has been duly given.\u201d<\/p>\n
In practical terms, that means 15 clubs could join forces to force City out immediately. The Independent has reported that discussions of that possibility have already taken place among several club executives.<\/p>\n
One executive was quoted as saying: \u201cThis is a farce that will lead to protest, damage to the integrity and reputation of the competition, and possibly even violence,\u201d one is quoted as saying. \u201cThe board has a duty at law to its shareholders to protect, enhance and promote the interests of the Premier League.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rule exists for a reason, and in theory it gives clubs the power to act if they believe expulsion serves the competition\u2019s interests. Even so, that prospect is widely viewed as unlikely in the present climate.<\/p>\n
Any attempt to remove City would almost certainly face a successful legal challenge, which would only deepen the uncertainty already surrounding the case.<\/p>\n
Despite that, pressure for action is not easing. Club executives are still pushing for an immediate response, with growing concern that the season cannot continue along its current course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Manchester City face pressure over expulsion rules as executives weigh action before the appeal verdict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,172],"tags":[1836,59],"class_list":["post-21746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","category-epl","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}