Carragher Calls for Three-to-Five-Year Punishment for Man City Over Financial Breaches

Jamie Carragher believes Manchester City should be punished over a number of years for their financial breaches, not just one season.

The former Liverpool defender made the call after an independent commission found City guilty of breaking Premier League rules in a strongly worded report released last week. 

City have appealed. The panel found the club inflated revenue by more than £830 million ($1.08 billion) over nine seasons, from 2009-10 to 2017-18. If the appeal fails, Carragher thinks the sanction should match the scale of that.

Speaking on The Overlap Fan Debate with Sky Bet, the 48-year-old said a points deduction of 80 or 100 would not be enough. "If the people talk about [a penalty of] 80 points or 100 points, but that's just over one season that gets you relegated and then you come back again," he said.

He thinks the players would simply wait it out. "And I think players, a few of them would leave, but I think some of them would say, 'I could put up with that for a year.'"

Carragher said the length of the punishment should reflect how long the issues went on. "But I think, because this has gone on for so long, I do think the punishment should be over a number of years, three to five years, and then players would move on," he added.

City are back in action this weekend with a trip to Liverpool on Sunday. The Reds have been arguably their biggest rivals for the title over the last 15 years or so.

Enzo Maresca's side can expect a hostile atmosphere at Anfield, and former City defender and manager Stuart Pearce thinks the Italian should try to use that to his advantage.

"The opposition, they'll be rolling their sleeves up," Pearce said. "The atmosphere in the stadiums is going to be red hot. It's unbelievable it happens to be Liverpool this weekend. It's going to be electric."

He went on: "So it's going to stimulate everybody else against City, and it's got to stimulate City against everyone else."