In their seminal book Soccernomics, published in 2009, Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski conclude that the single biggest predictor for a team’s success is how much they spend on wages. Pay more and you’ll likely win more.

Around the same time, UEFA put out its own report into the link between finances and future triumphs across Europe’s major leagues. ‘There is a strong correlation between club spending and success on the pitch and is one of the biggest factors determining the likelihood of success,’ it found. ‘Money does not guarantee success but it does improve the probability of victory.’

Apropos of absolutely nothing, it was also in 2009-10, the second season under their new Abu Dhabi owners, that Manchester City’s wage bill jumped by £50million to nearly twice the Premier League average. Before their arrival, City paid £54m in wages and the top-flight average was £60m. Now, it was £133m when the average was still only £70m. By the time 2012-13 ticked around, with a league title under their belts, they were paying 2.6 times the Premier League average. The season before that, the iconic final-day drama against QPR, they paid 2.4 times it.

As the bombshell news broke on Friday that City had been found guilty of the vast majority of the 115 Premier League charges, something else became clear: over that nine-season period from 2009, they had bought their way to the top and done so unfairly. The question now is at what cost – not just to themselves, of course, but to other clubs in the process.

Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester United all served legal notices last year reserving their right to take action should City be found guilty. They will argue, should the verdict stand, that City’s misdemeanours cost them titles, trophies, European qualification and, above all when it comes to these things, money.

So, just how much has City’s rule breaking cost their rivals?

First, some parameters. You can argue, quite convincingly, that City’s actions over those nine seasons built the very foundations for the rampant success that followed under Pep Guardiola and that, without them, despite his genius, they would unlikely have had the platform or finances in place to achieve it, but, for now, we will stick to that period between 2009-10 and 2017-18.

So, apologies in advance to Mikel Arteta for those two second-placed finishes behind City and sorry, too, to Jurgen Klopp for those two runners-up spots with 97 and 92 points, and to Watford for their FA Cup final defeat.

Every Premier League side during this time can feel aggrieved about something, whether it’s the few million quid difference for finishing a place lower than they might. Clubs could also argue that missing out on cash or European football would have cost them in the transfer market too and they could have signed bigger, better superstars for long-term success. That, again, is far too deep a rabbit hole.

What it does all show, however, is that things are about to get messy.

Who are the biggest victims from Manchester City’s success down the years? 

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR

Trust Spurs to be perhaps the biggest loser from all of this. Spurs missed out on the Champions League four times during the years where City are said to have been up to no good.

Tottenham finished fifth in 2010-11, 2012-13 and 2014-15. The worst of all of them was 2011-12 when they finished inside the top four but, in true Spurs fashion, didn’t qualify for the Champions League because Chelsea won the competition despite finishing sixth.

Take City out of this – or, at least, turn them back into the midtable scrappers they were before Abu Dhabi’s instant cash – and that’s four seasons in Europe’s elite competition should they have made it through the play-off round.

City went out in the group stages in two of those Champions League seasons and still took home about £24m in each of them. When they reached the semi-finals in 2015-16, they banked £61.2m.

Even if Spurs had failed to get out of the group in any of them that’s still £100m. Spurs received £2.7m for their Europa League campaign in 2011-12, Manchester United earned 10 times as much for crashing out in the Champions League group stages that season.

Tottenham have missed out on the Champions League four times because of Man City – including under Harry Redknapp

MANCHESTER UNITED

In another life, Manchester United might have 22 league titles instead of 20. Sir Alex Ferguson’s side lost out to City on goal difference in that remarkable 2011-12 season but, in this parallel universe, poor Martin Tyler never got his ‘Aguerrrooo’ moment.

United were runners up to City’s 100-point monsters in 2017-18, albeit still some 19 points behind.

In merit payments alone, that tots up to a little shy of £3m, and we’re not even beginning to think of any extra money on merchandise or open-top bus parades.

United also missed out on qualifying for the Champions League in 2015-16 as, once again, City pipped them on goal difference to budge the Red Devils into fifth and the Europa League.

Jose Mourinho would lead United to the trophy the following season of course, pocketing them about £38m in the process, but even that is less than the £48m City earned from reaching the last 16 of the Champions League.

Manchester United would have won a Premier League title under Jose Mourinho 

LIVERPOOL

Say goodbye to the Steven Gerrard slip as well. Liverpool finished two points behind City in that fateful 2013-14 season under Brendan Rodgers. The difference between first and second that season, in purely financial terms, was about £1.2m in merit payments but, again, the Reds will surely attempt to claim that ending what would have been a 24-year wait for a title, instead of the 30 years it took them in the end, would have seen them cash in far and wide. 

Liverpool lost in the final of the League Cup to City in 2016 on penalties too. Now, of course, what’s to say that Everton, who City beat in the semi-finals, wouldn’t have got the better of them. Winning the competition would only have gained them an extra £50,000 in prize money but, crucially, would have booked their place in the Europa League. They didn’t have European football the following season, finishing eighth and also losing to Sevilla in the final of the competition that year for which they earned about £32m.

The Reds also finished sixth in 2010-11, leaving them with no European football the following season. Take City away, and they’re back in the Europa League too.

Steven Gerrard’s slip against Chelsea would not have mattered – Liverpool would have won the Premier League title anyway

ARSENAL

At the end of the 2016-17 season, Arsenal’s run of 20 successive Champions League qualifications under Arsene Wenger came to an end. They finished fifth, a point behind Liverpool, and three behind third-placed City.

In this life, the run goes on. The gain an extra £2m for a higher league finish and Champions League spoils via the play-offs. The Gunners earned £33.5m for reaching the Europa League semis the following season while City took home £54.6m for reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

Arsenal can also add the 2018 League Cup to their cabinet, too. Again, only £50,000 more in prize money and they had already qualified for the Europe but, still, nice to have some more silverware.

Arsenal’s run of qualifying for the Champions League under Arsene Wenger would have continued

EVERTON

Not only might the Toffees have a shot at Liverpool in the League Cup final in 2016, but they also fell just short of European qualification multiple times. Everton finished fifth under Roberto Martinez in 2013-14, settling for Europa League instead of Champions League. That earned them about £5m, far less than the grandest stage not to mention £1.2m for one lower place.

The season before, they finished sixth and got no European football at all – without City, they do. In 2009-10, when Portsmouth, the FA Cup runners-up, were refused a UEFA licence, their Europa League place went instead to the team that finished seventh. That was Liverpool. Without City, it would have been Everton.

In 2011-12, they finished seventh. England’s quota was full after Chelsea won the Champions League from sixth. Without City, Everton get Europe again.

Everton would have been playing in the Champions League and Europe several times 

CHELSEA

Similarly, Chelsea had to make do with fifth place instead of fourth in 2017-18. As a consolation, they went on to win the Europa League the following season under Maurizio Sarri, which brought them in £41m.

Oh and don’t forget the Community Shield in 2012. A trophy’s a trophy.

Tony Pulis’ Stoke City lost to Man City in the 2011 FA Cup final – they may have won that! 

SUNDERLAND AND STOKE

I spent some time in Sunderland earlier this summer, as the club prepared for its first European adventure in more than half a century. How different things might have been. The Black Cats lost to City in the League Cup final in 2014 with the winners earning a place in the Europa League that would likely have banked them £5m. Four years later, they were in League One.

Stoke lost to City in the 2011 FA Cup final. They still got into the Europa League as City were in the Champions League but the result still cost them nearly £1m in prize money.

A belated congratulations to Tony Pulis on his first and only major trophy.