Former Manchester City star Danny Mills believes his old side should be punished over a seven-year period.
The club were found guilty of breaching more than 100 Premier League charges and lodged an appeal against the verdict.
Much debate has focused on what punishments City could or should face, with point deductions, sanctions, and relegation all on the table.
Speaking exclusively to GB News through Gambling.com, Mills gave his position on how his former team should be punished.
He said: “I think that makes it unfair on teams in the EFL, I would say, because City will still have the strongest squad by some distance.
“When you look at not just their first-team squad, their reserve squad, their 25 or 30-man squad, their under-21s, their players out on loan – if a few players left, they’d blitz the Championship. So you’re taking away a promotion spot from someone in the Championship. Is that fair? Not really, I would say.
“People say: ‘Oh yeah, it’d be great for the Championship, because Man City comes to your stadium once.’ That’s it. And you’re still only going to sell it out.
“If you’ve only got 15,000, 20,000 seats, you might get 15,000 normally, so you’re only going to get an extra 5,000 seats.
Manchester City play Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday
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“It’s not like you’re going to make massive revenue off Manchester City. The TV deal is not going to suddenly change because Man City are in the Championship for a season. So I think the punishment has to be fair, harsh, and I would say probably over the course of seven seasons.
“I know there’s 114 charges, but I think the seven most serious charges are for that seven-season period where they’ve been found guilty of financial doping, effectively.
“So, if it were me, I think a very harsh punishment for a seven-year period would be fair, because one season does nothing. It becomes irrelevant.”
Mills looked ahead to Sunday’s thrilling clash against Liverpool and predicted a “fantastic” contest.
Danny Mills feels City should be punished over a seven-year period
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GETTYHe said: “It’ll be some atmosphere at Anfield, I know that. It’s actually one I’d like to play in, I think. As a player, you want to play in these sort of games – incredibly hostile.
“I think some of the chanting will be quite funny. I’m going to watch it on that basis. I’m pretty sure there’ll be crowd cam or whatever it might be.
“Football fans are clever. They’ll come up with some interesting signs, some clever flags, some banners and some great songs, no doubt. So that’ll be quite interesting in itself.
“It’ll make for a fantastic atmosphere. But as a player, you want to play in games like that. You want to play up against it. It’s an easy team talk from Maresca: ‘The world hates us. Liverpool hates us. Let’s go out there and beat them.'”
Mills thinks it will be an easy team talk for Enzo Maresca on Sunday, saying he needs to tell his side: ‘The world hates us. Liverpool hates us. Let’s go out there and beat them’
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PAMills believes it is “an easy game for City to play” because they know every football fan will be rooting for Liverpool.
He said: “Would these players be there if City hadn’t done what they did years ago? Who knows? But I think it’s hard for Andoni Iraola to stand in that dressing room and say: ‘Look, no, you need to beat these guys because they cheated.’
“It’s a hard sell for the players. The players are looking and going: ‘Really? That’s your team talk?’ So I leave that to the fans. I think Liverpool will just deal with it as a normal game.
“City makes it a bit easier. As I said, it’s a siege mentality: ‘The world, everybody wants us to lose today. Every single non-Manchester City fan wants us to get beat 3-0 or 4-0 and get it handed to us. Go out there and make sure that doesn’t happen.’ So, I think it’s an easy game for City to play, almost.”
