This is the usual “too big to fail” copium. The league is not going to collapse because one club drops.
1. “Billions will switch to the Championship just to watch City”
No they won’t. The Premier League’s pull is the competition as a whole: title races, derbies, United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle, Villa, etc. People don’t cancel Sky/NBC/beIN because one team is in the second tier. City already got relegated in 2001. The Premier League didn’t die. Nobody “followed them to Division One” in 1998 either.
2. “The Premier League will lose relevance”
The product is 20 clubs, unpredictability, and global rights already sold. International rights now bring in more than domestic ones. Broadcasters buy the league, not one shirt. Leicester won the title and later fell out of the top flight. The league kept growing. City being good for a decade didn’t invent the Premier League’s audience.
3. “We were the ones giving them PR in Europe”
English clubs were winning European Cups before City were even a consistent top-half side. Liverpool, United, Chelsea, Villa, Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa again now. The PR exists because the league is deep, not because one club exists. If anything, multiple English sides in Europe is the selling point. One club being missing does not stop the rest competing.
4. “Strongest fanbase in Europe / billions in lost revenue”
City do not have the strongest fanbase in Europe. They don’t even have the strongest in Manchester. On socials and most surveys it’s Real Madrid and Barcelona first, then United, then a pack of Liverpool / City / Chelsea / PSG depending on the year. City’s following grew because of success and money, not the other way around.
Central PL TV money is shared. Overseas pot is mostly equal + a bit of merit. One club leaving does not wipe “billions” off the next rights cycle. The last cycle was already worth ~£3.8bn a year before any hypothetical City verdict.
The Premier League’s whole brand is “anyone can go down.” If the rules only apply to clubs that aren’t currently useful for marketing, they’re not rules. You can argue the punishment should be a fine or points, that’s a separate debate. This “the league can’t afford to lose us” stuff is just entitlement dressed up as economics.