Manchester City has been found guilty of 114 of 115 Premier League charges, chiefly for allegedly disguising Emirati gifts as sponsorship revenues and paying staff off the books. If the club cheated, it should be stripped of trophies, pay hundreds of millions in compensation, and possibly be relegated. But the Premier League should then scrap its misguided financial rules that restrict owners from spending their own money.

These rules protect incumbent giants like Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal — clubs with American owners focused on extracting profits — while blocking competitive upstarts. Owner funding, coupled with TV rights booms, made the Premier League the world's richest league, supporting an estimated 104,500 jobs and boosting British soft power. Spendthrift owners like Roman Abramovich at Chelsea and Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan at City increased competition for trophies.

Germany's league, which rejects rich owners, remains second-rate despite Europe's largest economy. Football clubs are extraordinarily sustainable; only Portsmouth has entered administration since 1992. The real problem is brutal regimes owning clubs.

The Owners' and Directors' Test (formerly Fit and Proper Person Test) fails to stop bad actors: Mansour's UAE, Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund at Newcastle United, and Abramovich's links to Vladimir Putin all passed. English football should welcome donors like charities and universities do, but must tighten ownership vetting.