Manchester City's spending power changed world football transfer market, raising prices and wages for others. Once a club has City's cash, spending it becomes difficult; asking prices rise, and money is no guarantee of success. For many teams City paid most, the money did not work out beneficially.
Wolfsburg immediately signed Julian Draxler for about half the Kevin de Bruyne fee in 2016, but dropped from second to eighth in Bundesliga, then narrowly avoided relegation. Monaco, after selling Benjamin Mendy and Bernardo Silva, signed replacements Terence Kongolo and Keita Balde that did not work out; Monaco went from Ligue 1 winners to near relegation within two years. Arsenal, City's most frequent purchase club (four players), did not mount a serious Premier League title challenge.
Clubs not receiving City payments, like Sporting, did not win a title between 2009 and 2018, while rivals Benfica and Porto received similar totals. Sell-on clauses also spread City's money: Queens Park Rangers earned roughly £9m from Raheem Sterling's move from Liverpool in 2015; Barnsley took about £7m from John Stones' transfer from Everton in 2016. These clauses significantly strengthened QPR and Barnsley's finances, yet neither returned to the Premier League, and Barnsley dropped to League One.
City's spending during rule-breaking had enormous impact on their own trajectory and the wider football economy. But it is impossible to unweave the tapestry of football history since; too many indirect consequences remain, and effects will reverberate for years.
Source: BBC Sport Football · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing