When it comes to making a decision, English Premier League executives interviewed say they expect the commission to consider the offences in two parts. It will focus on the material alleged breaches, which could bring the most substantive penalties if Manchester City are found guilty of breaching financial fair play regulations but then also the matter of alleged non-cooperation.

Every person interviewed for this article said they expect City will face punishment for failing to cooperate, having previously received a fine for this from UEFA. The question is whether the commission judges non-cooperation to be worthy of a sporting penalty or merely a slap on the wrist.

These executives point out the contradiction in City’s public statement, where they said they welcomed the chance to present their irrefutable evidence but, at the same time, the Premier League charges include allegations that the club obstructed the investigation. City, for example, headed to court to question the league’s jurisdiction to investigate it and then once more, this time with the Premier League, to prevent any details from becoming public.

Lord Justice Stephen Males, a High Court judge who heard the latter case, wrote in his 2021 judgment: “This is an investigation that commenced in December 2018. It is surprising, and a matter of legitimate public concern, that so little progress has been made after two-and-a-half years – during which, it may be noted, the club has twice been crowned as Premier League champions.” Twice has now become five.

This is where the suggestion of a settlement between the Premier League and City appears to become less likely. “There’s been plenty of opportunity for settlements in the past, which hasn’t happened,” says one executive familiar with the case. “Either party can at any time effectively take it out of the court and have a conversation without prejudice to say we’ll have a settlement. But the further you go, the less likely that is.

“But the scale of this is so large that it’s really difficult to have a negotiated settlement. What are you going to settle on? A fine? A small number of points? Look at Forest and Everton. You can’t do that. This is of a scale both in terms of time, depth and severity of charges that is completely off the scale of the others.”

The desire for a settlement would need to come from City, too, and the biggest clue towards their approach came within one of City’s most infamous leaked emails when a leading City lawyer wrote that Al Mubarak, the club chairman, had said that “he would rather spend 30million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue them for the next 10 years” than agree to any financial settlement or penalty from UEFA amid the previous case.

One Premier League executive says there is a feeling within the league’s HQ that City have simply “taken the p***” since receiving their first letter from the Premier League on the matter in 2018. This person argues that if City accepted some fault from the outset, they may have taken a substantially smaller punishment than the one which could now be imposed. “They wouldn’t have been relegated, but they have now dug themselves into the massive hole. And it’s either a massive leap that gets them out scot-free or a massive sanction. It is a Hail Mary.”

The implications of the City case reach far and wide. The Premier League is a phenomenal global success that now drives more in international television revenue than it does from its domestic deal.

In the United States, the Premier League’s $450 million-per-season deal with NBC dwarfs that of La Liga’s $175 million package with ESPN or Bundesliga’s $30 million deal with ESPN. During an interview earlier this summer, The Athletic asked Jon Miller, NBC’s President, Acquisitions and Partnerships, whether the investigations not only into City but also Everton, Nottingham Forest and Chelsea in any way impacted the value of the Premier League.

Miller said: “It doesn’t question the value at all. What it says to me is that the people who are leading the Premier League very much are hands-on and they’re going to enforce their rules. It’s important that the league has got their hands around this and they’re not afraid to impose discipline where they think it’s needed.

“I actually applaud them for the stance they’re taking, even if it might move a team into a relegation zone or out of a Champions League or Europa League place. I would rather make sure the league is run on a fair basis, that everybody plays by the same rules.”

The challenge for the Premier League now is not only with regards to their own case against City but also that City have launched their own legal action against the Premier League, seeking to obliterate the rules, strengthened in 2021, that insist sponsorship deals must be independently assessed to be of fair market value within the competition. The aim was to prevent clubs from being able to receive funds through artificially inflated sponsorship deals linked to a club’s ownership or inflated deals between teams in a multi-club ownership group.

The Times reported in June that City claimed they were the victims of “discrimination” within a 165-page legal document, stating that a “tyranny of the majority” of teams across the league had ganged up on them to implement rules aimed at preventing their success. A verdict on this matter is expected within the next month and, should City have success, it may also undermine a central plank of the Premier League’s broader case against the club because allegedly inflated sponsorship deals linked to Abu Dhabi are among the alleged breaches.

The Premier League and City have indicated they intend to appeal against the decision if it goes against them in relation to these associated party transactions, according to people close to both parties.

An experienced football arbitrator sees it like this: “What’s really going on here is that (City) have invoked the dispute resolution proceedings in the covenant with the Premier League. In invoking the dispute resolution proceedings, it gets them into a room with the Premier League on their terms before the November hearing, which is the substantive hearing to determine whether they’re in breach of the 115 charges.

“So it’s a mechanism by which their KCs can eyeball Premier League KCs and effectively say to the Premier League, ‘We are prepared to take you down if you go forward with what you’re planning to do, then we’re going to have a damages claim against you of hundreds of millions, which you can’t afford. We’ll tie you up in litigation for the next five or 10 years and we will take you down’.

“It’s an aggressive litigation tactic and they’ve done it for a reason. Their owners will have needed to sign off on this. It’s not lawyers – the lawyers are merely only ever a conduit. They’re an agent for their client and so it is fascinating – I think they’re trying to provoke a rupture in the English game.”

City, it should be said, are not alone in having concerns about the policing of associated party transactions. When the Premier League voted to toughen up the regulations in February, six clubs voted against the move and two abstained, meaning the vote could be passed via the narrowest of margins with a two-third majority secured by 12 votes in favour.

City’s rivals, whether rationally or otherwise, fear that legal success for City would only be the start of attempts to destabilise the competitive balance of the English game. “They worry that it will lead to City and Newcastle (owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund) dumping a billion every summer; that’s the fear, that it blows the house down on financial sustainability across the whole of Europe,” says one European football executive.

As the Premier League pursues City and City sue the Premier League, another subplot emerged this week. The Times reported that some of City’s rivals are considering compensation claims for loss of earnings – whether by not winning titles or failing to qualify for European competition – as a result of City’s dominance over the past decade.

A source familiar with the hierarchy of multiple Premier League clubs argued it is unrealistic to expect legal success in this area because even teams with lower wage bills and inferior players can sometimes achieve more than may be expected. “It’s not like it is match-fixing where they have paid the referee or something. It’s too remotely related to the outcome of the match,” they said.

Clubs will largely be left hoping that the Premier League’s independent commission serves up satisfactory justice. The Premier League handbook allows for any kind of punishment, ranging from reprimands to fines, points deductions or even expulsion from the Premier League.

City are already facing uncertainty ahead of next summer, when manager Guardiola’s contract is due to expire. He is said to be torn over his future at this stage, regardless of the charges. He has often spoken in support of his club’s defence.

In May 2022, Guardiola said: “Why did I defend the club and the people? It’s because I work with them. When they are accused of something I ask them: ‘Tell me about that.’ They explain and I believe them. I said to them: ‘If you lie to me, the day after I am not here. I will be out and I will not be your friend any more. I put my faith in you because I believe you 100 per cent from day one and I defend the club because of that.’

Tebas, La Liga’s president, concludes: “The path the Premier League is taking now is important after many years in which we have not seen proceedings against their own clubs for financial fair play issues. The path they are trying to take is very important for all of European football.

“The Premier League’s economic sustainability is very important so that there is no inflation in salaries in the rest of Europe due to inflationary policies with money from outside of football (via state money). The result of Manchester City is important. I insist, there is a lot of concern within the Premier League teams. Without knowing the ins and outs of the charges, I do know something, which is that many clubs expect a sanction to be imposed.”

• The Athletic report