3 players who could leave Manchester City | UEFA Champions League 2019-20
While Leicester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers were battling it out on a rainy night at the Molineux Stadium, English football, and Manchester City in particular received the shock of its life. UEFA announced that they have decided to ban Manchester City from every competition organized by them, for the next two seasons.
Alongside that, they have also fined the Cityzens around £25m (€30m). This was done after an investigation by the governing body of football in Europe, which found out that City have breached the Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.
The Adjudicatory Chamber of Club Financial Control Body accused the English side of “overstating its sponsorship revenue in its accounts and in the break-even information submitted to UEFA between 2012 and 2016.”
Now in all these years, City also went on to win the 2014 Premier League title. Though any concrete news is still to materialise, there are rumours that state, there is a possibility of points deduction from their total tally and going by the 2014 Premier League points table, if points are deducted from City's tally, Liverpool maybe crowned as the champions. This feels like a pipe-dream for the moment but football is a crazy game.
This verdict however, is not set in stone. City will now appeal against the decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sports. The official club statement read,
“Simply put, this is a case initiated by UEFA, prosecuted by UEFA and judged by UEFA. With this prejudicial process now over, the club will pursue an impartial judgment as quickly as possible and will therefore, in the first instance, commence proceedings with the Court of Arbitration for Sport at the earliest opportunity."
But if the verdict stands, City are in deep trouble. Not only will they lose a good amount of money that participation in UEFA Champions League generates, they also might lose a few players. Let us have a look at three players who can leave Manchester City in the summer.
#3 Kevin De Bruyne
Kevin De Bruyne is perhaps the best playmaker in English football currently. Missing out on Champions League football would tempt a lot of top talents to quit Manchester City, and De Bruyne is expected to be one of them.
In 204 matches for Manchester City, he has scored 47 goals. He is also the leading the charts for assists in this season’s Premier League. Hence, it is very obvious that clubs would want to break their bank for him. Since the historic ruling from UEFA, Liverpool fans have been asking their club to splash the cash on the Belgian maestro.
Note: All statistics as of February 17, 2020