The verdict that football fans around the world had been awaiting for years is in - Manchester City are guilty. The club still insists it is innocent of the financial rule-breaking charges first brought against it by the Premier League in 2023, and can appeal, so the legal wrangling is far from over. And the verdict has unleashed some huge questions for both the near and long-term future.

What happens next and when? The deadline for Man City to make their appeal is Friday. In previous instances - including the guilty verdicts and punishments handed out when Everton and Nottingham Forest breached spending rules - the appeal was heard and a decision made before the sanctions against the clubs was announced. So precedent indicates that City's appeal will be considered and decided upon before punishments are declared.

How could relegation or expulsion work? There are two key scenarios here. The first is that one of the sanctions Manchester City are given is so significant a points deduction that they finish this season (or another future campaign, if the process takes longer) in the Premier League's bottom three and are automatically relegated to the Championship. The second scenario is that they are expelled by the Premier League, which would require 15 of their rival clubs to vote in favour of a motion decreeing so. Were that to happen, the club would be removed from the league system entirely.

The Premier League statement, formally announcing the guilty verdicts read on Monday, said it wants the process to be "concluded as soon as possible". City are top of the Premier League, having taken a maximum 15 points from their opening five matches, but whether they are genuinely in a title race will be unclear as long as players, fans, and club owners are in the dark about what their punishment will be.