Change one thing.
Follow what changes.

The No-City table

The table tells us what changed. Then we follow the money.

For every completed Premier League season in scope, we remove every Manchester City league fixture from every other club's record and recalculate the table.

• Remove both City fixtures from each other club's record.
• Recalculate points, wins, draws, losses, goals for and goals against.
• Rank clubs by points, then goal difference, then goals scored.
• Remove Manchester City entirely, leaving a 19-club counterfactual table. The bottom three — 17th, 18th and 19th — are relegated.

This is not an official table, a proposed sanction, or a prediction of how matches would have unfolded. It changes one input and keeps the rest of the recorded season fixed.

What moving one place was worth

Each Premier League finishing position carries a season-specific value through position-linked central distributions. We use the published value for that season and apply it to the club's actual and No-City finishing positions.

From 2019/20, position-linked international merit is also part of the distribution system, so the per-place value is higher than the older domestic-merit-only era.

When a changed table crosses a qualification line

If a club's No-City finish moves it into a different European competition, we record the change and model the associated UEFA revenue difference.

We value the changed UEFA campaign against actual distributions to comparable English clubs. The lower case uses the lowest comparable English non-winning receipt in the higher competition; the central case uses the median. Competition winners are excluded, and season-average EUR→GBP conversion is used when rolling the values into sterling.

We do not count sponsorship uplift, extra matchday income, transfer effects or long-term commercial growth from European participation.

The financial cliff

When the No-City table changes a club from relegated to surviving, we value one additional Premier League season and stop there.

The conservative version uses the following season's 20th-place Premier League central distribution and subtracts the first-year parachute payment the club actually received. A club only qualifies if it moves from an actual relegation place to 16th or higher in the 19-team No-City table.

We do not assume the club survives again, gets promoted later, keeps the same squad or follows the same managerial and transfer path.

Across the charged-period tables, Blackpool in 2010/11 are the only genuine relegation-to-survival reversal: 19th becomes 16th. The model adds £23.625m as the conservative identifiable relegation effect.

Sporting consequence, not a second cheque

If the No-City table produces a different champion, we record that sporting consequence. We do not add a separate title bonus to the financial model because first-place Premier League merit money is already captured in the position calculation.

We also do not assign speculative values to the sponsorship, commercial, supporter-growth, recruitment or brand effects of winning a title.

The number is deliberately narrow

We do not try to price every possible butterfly effect. The financial figure excludes:

• Sponsorship and commercial uplift.
• Player values and transfer-chain effects.
• Different signings, managers or squad decisions.
• Supporter growth and long-term brand value.
• Future league performances after the timeline materially diverges.
• Trophies or European runs that might have followed.

A modelled revenue impact, not a compensation claim

The financial figure is the minimum identifiable or modelled revenue effect produced by the No-City calculation under the assumptions above.

It does not mean Manchester City "owes" a club that amount, and it does not mean the alternative history would definitely have happened.

The principle is simple: change one thing — Manchester City's results — then follow the consequences we can actually measure.

Make the calculation checkable

There is no single official document containing the answer. Each headline figure should be traceable through four steps: the match results, the rebuilt table, the financial consequence and the source used to value it.

• Historical match results
• Premier League central payments
• Premier League 2022/23 payments
• Premier League 2023/24 position value
• Premier League 2024/25 position value
• UEFA men's club competition distributions

Where possible we use official Premier League and UEFA material. For older seasons, contemporary distribution records are used where the official archive is incomplete.

See something we've missed? Tell us. We'll check it.