LA LIGA PRESIDENT Javier Tebas has called for Manchester City to face the strongest possible sanction available to the Premier League if they have breached financial rules.

News broke on Friday that City had been found guilty of the majority of 115 charges laid against them, although chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak is “confident” they will prove their innocence.

The most severe punishment available to the Premier League is expulsion, an outcome that would require the support of at least 15 of the competition’s 20 clubs at a general meeting.

Tebas, a campaigner against ‘financial doping’ in European football, believes any sanction should reflect non-compliance as well as setting an example.

“I don’t know the exact rules, but I believe it should be the strictest punishment in the Premier League regulations regarding this matter,” Tebas said at the FIFPRO performance summit in London.

“It should be a punishment intended to set an example. This isn’t a matter of a father and his children – it is a punishment to ensure rules are followed.

“And violating the rules for over 10 years – no matter how minor the infractions – is a very serious matter. Therefore it has to be a severe punishment for the non-compliance. Not just to set an example, but because the rules were broken.”

Tebas hopes that establishing City’s guilt will act as a pivotal moment in the game, with the repercussions having an impact beyond the Premier League.

“We have to decide whether we strive for sustainable, clean football across all competitions or, as many clubs are now saying, we accept that championships were lost to other clubs when they shouldn’t have been,” he said.

“What’s happened is hugely significant and hopefully marks a turning point, not just for the Premier League but for European football as a whole because the ‘Manchester effect’ was felt right across Europe.”

Tebas also wants a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to overturn a two-year UEFA ban imposed on City in 2020 for breaching financial rules to be looked at again.

The CAS, which also reduced a 30million euros fine to 10m euros, cleared City of “disguising equity funds as sponsorship contributions” and ruled that many of UEFA’s allegations “were either not established or time-barred”.

“In my opinion, the CAS decisions should be re-examined, specifically when they cleared City, or rather lifted the sanction UEFA had imposed, because those sanctions were lifted in a very questionable manner,” Tebas said.

“And now it has been proven that UEFA was right regarding the sanctions against Manchester City.”

Former Tottenham and Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino expressed sadness that the Premier League “lived through a period of deception” if City breached the rules.

The Argentinian, who was in charge at Spurs between 2014 and 2019 and Stamford Bridge in 2023-24, having previously been at Southampton from 2013 to 2014, said it warped the view of history.

Pochettino told the Guardian, through an interpreter: “At the end of the day, we went through something where sporting fairness didn’t exist, so how do you repair everything that was damaged because of that?

“If it’s true… we’ve lived through a period of deception.”

Pochettino said there was no punishment which could make up for the “damage” which had been caused.

“Whatever punishment, it’s impossible to turn back time,” he added.

“It’s done a lot of damage. At the end of the day many clubs followed the rules and some didn’t.”

Hull owner Acun Ilicali claimed City’s alleged offences were “no different to doping and winning an Olympic medal”.

The first Premier League owner to speak out publicly, he told 1904 Club podcast: “I don’t say they are guilty or not because they are saying they are innocent, and the Premier League says they are not innocent.

“If they are not innocent, I think it is no different to doping and winning an Olympic medal.

“This is financial doping, at the end of the day. Bringing the top four or five players with huge money, breaking the rules. From that side, it doesn’t look very positive.”