Steven Gerrard ‘very interested’ in outcome of Premier League’s investigation into Manchester City
The former Liverpool midfielder captained his side to second, behind Man City, in the 2013-14 season
The announcement of Manchester City’s two-year ban from European competition is far from the end of an ongoing saga surrounding the club’s finances.
City are appealing against the verdict through the Court of Arbitration for Sport while the fallout continues from one of the biggest football stories of the season.
Elsewhere, uncertainty remains as the Premier League are carrying out a separate investigation into how City operated regarding its own financial fair play rules.
There have been rumours of retrospective points deductions and even the possibility that this could cause the club to be stripped of some of its titles.
In relation to the 2013-14 season, Liverpool would stand to benefit having finished in second place, just two points behind Man City, who were then managed by Manuel Pellegrini.
The season was famous for Liverpool’s unexpected title challenge, driven by the prolific strike partnership of Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge, who scored 52 goals between them.
With Brendan Rodgers’ side leading the way with just three games remaining, Steven Gerrard infamously slipped to let Demba Ba through on goal, setting Chelsea up for victory.
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Liverpool were unable to recover from a damaging defeat and finished second.
It was the closest Gerrard came to winning the title, and when asked about City facing possible sanctions that could see Liverpool crowned champions instead, he admitted to following the story with interest.
"I read that myself this morning. We will wait and see. From a UEFA point of view, it is obviously a real strong sentence or punishment. I'm sure they will appeal so we will wait and see what the outcome is on that,” said the Rangers manager.
"Then we will see whether the Premier League act from there. But if you look at the severity of the punishment from UEFA, something has gone badly wrong.
"So I'm really interested to see the outcome of that. Until I get the punishment from the Premier League, I won't comment further. But I'm really, really interested in it...for obvious reasons.”
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Sean Cole is a freelance journalist. He has written for FourFourTwo, BBC Sport and When Saturday Comes among others. A Birmingham City supporter and staunch Nikola Zigic advocate, he once scored a hat-trick at St. Andrew’s (in a half-time game). He also has far too many football shirts and spends far too much time reading the Wikipedia pages of obscure players.