Manchester City’s ongoing financial battle with the Premier League has dragged English football’s governance crisis back into the spotlight, with former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan arguing that the competition should be torn down entirely rather than patched up around the edges.
Jordan’s intervention comes at a sensitive moment for City, who are still waiting on the outcome of their long-running case with the league and are simultaneously adjusting to life under new head coach Enzo Maresca following Pep Guardiola’s departure at the end of last season.
Jordan: “century-old rules can’t cope with modern ownership”
Speaking out on the issue, as reported by Goal, Jordan dismissed the idea that minor tweaks to the Premier League’s rulebook could ever be enough to deal with the scale of modern, state-backed ownership. In his view, the entire framework needs to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch.
“Really, the only way to evolve this game is to disband the Premier League, recreate it with a whole new set of rules that are fit for purpose rather than tacking on rules that have existed for 125 years and keep trying to finesse them to meet ownership models that are so much more sophisticated now,” Jordan said.
It’s a striking position from a man who ran a Premier League club himself. It reflects a broader unease among pundits and rival executives that the competition’s foundational framework was never designed with sovereign wealth-backed superclubs in mind.
City’s summer spending, part of a combined Premier League outlay that reportedly touched £3.5bn across the division, has only sharpened that argument, with critics suggesting the competition’s finances have simply outgrown its rulebook.
Why stripping titles isn’t the answer, says Jordan
With City still facing the possibility of serious sanctions attention has repeatedly turned to a more symbolic punishment: stripping the club of the three Premier League titles it won between 2009 and 2018. Jordan, however, was unconvinced that such a move would achieve anything meaningful.
“Just out of curiosity, what does that achieve? They’ve been slaughtered,” Jordan responded when asked about removing those honours.
He went further, making clear he isn’t against accountability in principle, but doesn’t see retrospective punishment as the right lever to pull.
“I don’t think it’s pointless. I just don’t know what it achieves. It’s about what we do now going forward,” he added.
A club in transition, on and off the pitch
The timing adds an extra layer of intrigue. City are navigating one of the most significant periods of change in their recent history.
Maresca is now tasked with keeping City competitive just as the legal cloud hanging over the club shows little sign of lifting.
