Man City face ASTRONOMICAL losses on several elite stars as vultures circle amid FFP turmoil

Manchester City could be brutally forced to bid farewell to several high-profile stars for cut-price sums next year if the Premier League expels them from the competition, a former CEO has revealed.

The Cityzens are in the midst of the biggest scandal the Premier League has ever witnessed after being found guilty on 114 counts of financial irregularities conducted over nine years between 2009 and 2018.

While it is important to note Manchester City furiously deny all allegations against them – and TEAMtalk, in conversation with a top sports lawyer, exclusively revealed on Wednesday that the club plans to take their case to the High Court – speculation over what punishment they will receive is starting to generate serious interest.

To that end, it was reported on Thursday morning that Premier League clubs are demanding rapid sanctions brought against City and with the ‘most likely’ punishment now finally coming to light.

As a knock-on effect, and with demotion from the Premier League – and potentially even further down the football pyramid – one serious option, speculation over several of their star players is now starting to gather pace.

TEAMtalk sources have already looked into where the likes of Rayan Cherki could end up, while academy graduate Phil Foden is also attracting serious interest.

Now, the former Everton CEO has explained why City could be powerless to prevent the exits of a plethora of their top stars, indicating that market forces would enforce their exits for discounted fees, despite expelling myths that relegation clauses will exist in City players’ contracts…

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And explaining why City could take monumental hits on several top stars, Wyness told Football Insider: “You’re absolutely right that there wouldn’t be release clauses, but this proves the point once again, and I learned the lesson the hard way that there should always be relegation clauses in contracts,” he said.

“We know that there are deep resources within the ownership. However, they’ll also have to look at this pretty professionally and look at it as a business situation. And they will see enormous wage pressure.”

Backing up our claims that several Premier League and European vultures will already be watching events at City with intent and with the hope of picking up some elite stars at a reduced rate, Wyness revealed the level of discount clubs can expect to get.

“So I would expect there to be about a 25 to 30 per cent discount over what the market value of these players would be.”

However, despite all that, he also believes City would protect themselves through sell-on percentages and buy-back agreements, which would secure their interests in the players and protect themselves from wholesale financial losses.

After all, and despite all the turmoil, City will see their star players as assets, even if they are forced to leave owing to their sky-high wages and the fact that these would be unsustainable if no longer in the Premier League and Champions League.

Off the back of all this, The Athletic journalist David Ornstein has speculated that City could be thrown out of the Premier League and has also explained whether Sheikh Mansour could be removed as the club’s owner.

The Premier League’s guilty verdict has also seen Roy Keane issue a startling demand, while Jamie Carragher has branded their owners a ‘stain’ and demanded their removal from the club.