Mauricio Pochettino has spoken at length about Manchester City's guilty verdict, insisting that no sanction can undo the harm inflicted on the sport and demanding to know why the Premier League failed to act during the years the breaches occurred. The US national team manager coached against City while in charge of Southampton, Tottenham and Chelsea, and said the scale of the findings left him astonished.
An independent tribunal determined that City breached Premier League financial regulations in 114 of the 115 charges they faced, covering a period from the 2009-10 campaign through to 2017-18. The club deny any wrongdoing and plan to appeal. City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak stated that the club's confidence in proving their innocence remained as strong as when proceedings began, while chief executive Ferran Soriano cautioned fellow top-flight chiefs that the legal fight would take considerably longer to resolve. "It's taken eight years to get here," Soriano told the assembled club chiefs, "and it's going to take a lot more time."
Sanctions have not yet been determined, with relegation, points deductions and the stripping of titles all under consideration. City claimed three Premier League titles, one FA Cup and three League Cups across the period covered by the charges.
Pochettino, 54, made clear that whatever form punishment takes, it cannot reverse what clubs who followed the rules were forced to endure. He said it was impossible to turn back time, that enormous damage had been done, and that many clubs had abided by the rules while others had not. He described the era as one in which sporting fairness did not exist and asked how everything that was damaged could ever be repaired, saying that if 114 rules had truly been broken, those involved had lived through a period of deception.
The Argentine drew on his own experience at Spurs to sharpen his criticism. During his five years in north London, the club went without a transfer signing for 18 months while the new stadium was being financed — a constraint he described as unique in the history of the Premier League. Despite that, his side finished third, second and third across the three seasons between 2015-16 and 2017-18, and reached the Champions League final in 2019.
Pochettino also raised Chelsea's admission of making more than £47 million in secret payments to unregistered agents and third parties between 2011 and 2018. Chelsea were fined £10 million but escaped a significant sporting sanction. Spurs finished second to Chelsea in 2016-17, with the champions ending on 93 points, seven ahead of Tottenham's 86, and Pochettino has argued that Spurs should have been awarded that title as a result.
Elsewhere, former Stoke City manager Tony Pulis reflected in his BBC Sport column on his club's defeat to City in the 2011 FA Cup final. He wrote that he did not seriously believe trophies would be redistributed and that a points deduction and a large fine felt more likely, but added that he still felt cheated and that whatever happened next, Stoke would never get that day back nor the chance to celebrate around Stoke-on-Trent with the cup and medals they had honestly fought for.
Sources have told BBC Sport that other top-flight clubs are seeking legal advice over potential compensation claims following the verdict. The tribunal's written findings have not yet been made public.
Reporting: talkSPORT, The Sun, Mirror, Sky Sports, Metro, BBC Sport, Daily Mail, Football.London, ESPN, The Athletic, The Guardian.