In his column for The Sun, former Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp addressed the financial irregularities allegations brought against Manchester City.

Redknapp's column

The fact that nearly all of the Premier League charges brought against Manchester City have been upheld marks a shocking moment for football.

It is difficult to fully grasp the potential impact this could have across the entire world of football, and how many people could be affected.

If Manchester City's appeal fails, there will certainly be many people, myself included, who will feel they have grounds to demand redress for past wrongs.

During the period when Manchester City faced irregularities charges, I was managing Tottenham Hotspur and for a long time we were competing with them for Champions League qualification.

In the 2010/11 and 2011/12 seasons, we missed Champions League qualification by just one place in consecutive seasons.

The second time, in the season Manchester City won the title with Aguero's last-minute goal, we finished fourth but didn't qualify for the Champions League because Chelsea won the Champions League and took our fourth-place spot.

In May 2011, we lost 0-1 to Manchester City, managed by Roberto Mancini at the time. That defeat secured their first-ever participation in Europe's premier club competition, and simultaneously ended our own Champions League dreams.

If things at the Etihad had followed the same rules as other teams back then, who knows how things might have turned out?

Nobody can be certain of the answer, but Tottenham Hotspur fans won't be the only ones feeling wronged in some way during those seasons.

Champions League qualification in either of those two seasons could have made an enormous difference for Tottenham Hotspur, but I have no interest in seeing the Premier League retroactively deduct points from those seasons or strip Manchester City of their titles.

The whole process has already been a long and messy farce, and it's still far from truly finished.

Imagine what an enormous Pandora's box we would open if officials actually started going back to revise long-established league positions.

Where would you even start? And where would you draw the line?

It's not just the teams at the top of the table who would be affected — the loss of titles, Champions League qualification and huge revenues would impact them, but teams at the bottom would also make their claims.

Teams that lost to Manchester City during those seasons and who were ultimately relegated by a few points would also begin fighting for their rights if other match results or points were retroactively altered.

While this incident represents an enormous vindication for them, the entire process has already damaged the Premier League.

However, reopening all those past seasons would cause immeasurable damage to a league that is envied throughout the world.

Manchester City must clearly be punished and serve as an example, but if those sanctions are applied to future seasons, that would undoubtedly be more reasonable for all parties involved.

I have always been proud of what I accomplished at Tottenham Hotspur because we chose a different path from teams with unlimited funds, and yet we were still able to compete with them.

Back then, we not only had to contend with Manchester City's staggering spending, but also Roman Abramovich's Chelsea.

We were able to compete with the best teams, but our budget was completely different from theirs.

We reached those heights not because someone walked into my office with a fat envelope, but through the hard work we put in on the training ground.

I know many clubs were competing with Manchester City for players back then, but ultimately they were vastly outbid by the wages Manchester City could offer.

In that regard, we and many other clubs simply couldn't compete with them.

I signed Adebayor from Manchester City, but his salary back then was probably only about a third of what he was earning at Manchester.

Once everything is settled, Manchester City should face severe sanctions, but no matter how unfairly treated we feel by what happened in the past, it would be madness to go back and start tinkering with the results of old matches.

Traduit par IA.

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