Maresca Says Manchester City Will Win Appeal in First Press Conference Since Guilty Verdict

Manchester City manager Enzo Maresca declared on Friday that he has complete trust in the club and believes it will win its appeal against the guilty verdict handed down over breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules, in his first press conference since the bombshell findings were published, according to USA Today.

The Italian, appointed in the summer after Pep Guardiola stepped down following a trophy-laden 10-year tenure, faced the media for the first time since an independent commission found City guilty on all — or as some reports described it, nearly all — of the more than 115 charges levelled against the club, according to Fox Sports. The findings were announced on September 29.

A Wall of Defiance

Maresca, in his first season at the Etihad, used his 15-minute appearance ahead of Sunday’s trip to Liverpool to close ranks entirely around the club’s ownership and hierarchy, according to Sky Sports.

“The reason I joined this club is that I completely trust, 100%, the owner, the CEO, the sporting director, all the organisation. So I don’t have doubt about that,” Maresca said, according to USA Today.

“I spoke with the club for sure. We all trust, and probably the right moment to speak about that is when we are going to win this appeal,” he added, according to Sky Sports.

The manager insisted he would have accepted the job even had the verdict been published before he signed on, answering “100%, yes” when asked whether he could still have taken the position, according to USA Today. He also rejected any suggestion that the club’s achievements under his predecessors were tainted by the verdict, replying “Absolutely not” when pressed on whether the titles were compromised, according to USA Today.

At the same time, Maresca declined to engage with the substance of the case at all. He admitted he had not read the commission’s findings, and indicated the club would save its full public argument for the appeal itself, according to Sky Sports.

The Verdict That Shook English Football

The commission found that between the 2009–10 and 2017–18 seasons, Manchester City engaged in “sham contracts” and “sham commercial deals” designed to artificially inflate the club’s revenues and reduce its costs, according to USA Today. The ruling followed more than three and a half years of legal process after the Premier League referred the charges to an independent commission in February 2023.

TalkSPORT reported the commission concluded City had inflated their financial position by around £900 million between 2009 and 2018, while Fox Sports put the inflated revenue figure at more than $1 billion — money the club used, Fox Sports reported, to help sign some of the biggest stars in world football.

During the period covered by the charges, City won three Premier League titles — in 2011–12, 2013–14 and 2017–18 — along with three EFL Cups, one FA Cup and one Community Shield, according to USA Today.

City have consistently denied the charges and have lodged an appeal, with that process now under way, according to talkSPORT. Should the appeal fail, the club could face a range of potential sanctions including relegation, points deductions, the stripping of titles and even a forced sale from the club’s Abu Dhabi-based owners, according to USA Today.

Fox Sports described the ruling as the biggest scandal in the history of the Premier League competition.

Haaland’s Rallying Cry

Maresca was not the only voice from the club this week. Striker Erling Haaland, speaking to Sky Sports ahead of the Liverpool match, issued his own message of unity without addressing the verdict directly.

Haaland urged everyone at the club to “stick together” and “stay positive”, telling supporters to “enjoy the ride and smile”, according to Sports Mole. City must now “try to win football games and try to enjoy the situation and the game”, he said.

Maresca echoed that message at his press conference, insisting his players were not distracted. “The noise is there but the players are relaxed,” he said, according to Liverpool.com. “They are just thinking about how they will beat Liverpool.”

He also downplayed the significance of the Anfield atmosphere ahead of Sunday. “I am always concerned,” Maresca said. “I know Anfield is a nice pitch and the reason I came to this club is for this kind of game. It will be a tough game for sure, but we need to be ready. The focus has to be in the game,” according to Liverpool.com.

Sunday’s Trip to Anfield

The Liverpool fixture comes at a remarkable moment for the fixture list: City travel to Anfield as the only team in the Premier League with a 100 per cent record, having won all five of their league matches this season, according to Reuters. Liverpool sit sixth, six points behind City, with two wins and three draws.

Liverpool will be without Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo for the heavyweight clash, manager Andoni Iraola confirmed on Friday, according to Reuters. Both players returned from international duty injured — Gakpo picked up an ankle injury playing for the Netherlands against Serbia, while Isak suffered what Iraola described as a “small” thigh injury with Sweden against Romania.

Neither injury is believed to be long-term, but both will miss Sunday’s game, according to Reuters. Their absence could open the door for 21-year-old Wales forward Lewis Koumas to lead the attack against City. “Koumas has our trust,” Iraola said, according to Reuters, adding that a demanding stretch of games before the next international break in November “will say a lot about us” as a measure of Liverpool’s credentials.

Maresca noted that his own history with the venue gives him perspective. The last time he was at Anfield, he said, was the treble season — he served as Guardiola’s assistant at City between 2022 and 2023, according to USA Today — and he knows “the effort the club put to achieve that kind of target”.

For City, Sunday is the first match since the verdict was published, and the first time the club’s players will perform in front of an away crowd that will surely have plenty to say.

Analysis: Why It Matters

The most revealing part of Maresca’s first appearance was not what he said but what he refused to say. This was not a legal defence; it was a communications operation. By declaring he had not read the findings and that the club would speak “when we’re going to win this appeal”, the manager signalled that City’s strategy is to quarantine the courtroom from the dressing room — to fight the case with lawyers while the football operation proceeds as if nothing has changed.

That quarantine is precisely why the Haaland message matters. “Stick together” is no longer just a striker’s platitude; it has become the club’s season slogan. City are betting that unity, results and the appeal process can run on parallel tracks — and that a winning team is the best possible character witness.

Yet the “tainted” question will not be settled by a press conference. Maresca was at pains to link himself to the club’s past glory — his time as an assistant during the treble season — but that triumph falls outside the 2009–2018 charge window. His “absolutely not” was about the club’s identity, not its legal position. If the appeal fails and sanctions include the stripping of titles, the debate over whether City’s dominance was earned or engineered will return with far greater force than any manager’s answer can carry.

There is also a wider significance for English football’s rulebook. This is the most serious financial-misconduct verdict the Premier League has ever produced, and whatever the appeal decides, it will reshape how the competition’s financial regulations are understood and enforced. Points deductions have already been imposed on clubs such as Everton and Nottingham Forest in recent seasons; the sanctions available here go vastly further. Every club in the country, and every potential owner, is watching to learn whether the league’s enforcement machinery has real teeth.

The immediate test, though, is Sunday. Anfield will be the first venue to turn the verdict into noise — a hostile, inventive, merciless away atmosphere directed at the champions. If City’s players genuinely are as relaxed as Maresca claims, a statement win at a ground where Liverpool will already be weakened by the loss of Isak and Gakpo would be a powerful one. If they falter, the verdict will be named as the reason before the final whistle blows.

What to watch next: first, the timeline of the appeal, which will run for months while City continue to compete normally. Second, the sanctions decision if the appeal fails — whether the punishment arrives as a points deduction, relegation, stripped titles, or something else entirely. Third, how rival clubs and supporters respond once the season’s decisive months arrive. And fourth, whether the off-field storm leaves any trace at all on a team that has won every league game it has played this season.

Sources

• USA Today — Defiant Manchester City boss Enzo Maresca says club will win appeal after guilty verdict
• Sky Sports — Man City charges: Enzo Maresca says owners ‘convinced’ club will win appeal against guilty verdict
• Reuters — Liverpool without Isak, Gakpo for heavyweight Man City clash
• Fox Sports — Enzo Maresca: ‘I Completely Trust’ Man City Despite Bombshell Guilty Verdict