Pep Guardiola makes fresh 115 Man City charges admission as Liverpool await Premier League verdict

Pep Guardiola is happy the hearing for the 115 charges hanging over Manchester City is to start next month. The City manager also hopes it will finish soon once it does begin for the sake of the other Premier League clubs, including Liverpool.

They were charged last February with 115 separate alleged breaches of the league's Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations. Those violations span from 2009 to 2018, and City deny them.

Their hearing will seemingly start in mid-to-late September, with Premier League chief executive Richard Masters confirming it now has a date when it will begin. Guardiola has now addressed the update.

"I'm happy that it starts soon," the City manager said during his Friday press conference before their home Premier League match against Ipswich Town, "and hopefully it will finish soon, for the benefit of all of us, especially the club but also other Premier League clubs and all the people who don’t wait for the sentence. I wish, from deep in my heart, (that it will) go to the trial, the independent panel - and I say again - independent panel - and as soon as possible, release what happened, and we will accept, like always, we have done."

Asked by the assembled journalists whether the case would impact the players, Guardiola insisted: "No, we have been talking about that for three or four years." The charges came following a four-year investigation, referring them to a commission independent of the Premier League and its clubs, members of which the independent Chair of the Premier League Judicial Panel appoints. Potential punishments for City include a limitless fine, a points deduction that could turn the title race on its head this season or even expulsion from the Premier League entirely, which would see them relegated from the top flight.