In the moments after the Premier League finally published the Manchester City decision, staff at their Brunel Building base could feel a weight lifting. Actually, they could almost hear it.

Some of the most prominent figures were now, finally, able to discuss the case .

For someone like chief executive Richard Masters , it is an extraordinary pressure: to be among the few people on the planet to have knowledge of a case the world was obsessed with . You could almost sense the release in his comments in the Premier League's statement .

And yet, as has been the case throughout the eight years of this saga, one development has only opened up another issue ; another avenue for complications.

This one is arguably the most fundamental.

The Premier League now has to get on with its raison d'etre of actually playing matches amid the greatest uncertainty it's ever faced. Worse, we have no idea whether many results will have the same meaning by the end of the season.

This isn't like after the charges in February 2023, or the initial leaks in November 2018. After those, everything was speculative, just one of many possibilities. Nothing might have happened.

Now, something has finally happened. We have a concrete decision. Manchester City might well overturn this in the appeal process, but right now, they are guilty of charges that are near certain to at least bring significant points deductions. There is evidently a need to expedite that process for some sense of normalcy.