Manchester City's guilty verdict has raised questions about trophies, points deductions and even relegation. Now another potentially enormous consequence has entered the conversation: could Erling Haaland and City's other stars simply terminate their contracts and leave the club?
The answer is more complicated than some of the headlines suggest. There is no automatic mechanism allowing Manchester City players to rip up their contracts because of the Premier League verdict, and there is no evidence that any member of the squad has attempted to do so. However, legal experts believe circumstances arising from the case could potentially give players grounds to challenge their contracts — particularly if the verdict survives City's appeal and leads to severe sporting consequences.
Why are Manchester City players' contracts suddenly being discussed?
An independent commission found Manchester City guilty of serious breaches of the Premier League's financial rules across nine seasons from 2009/10 to 2017/18. According to the Premier League, the commission concluded that City arranged "sham" contracts with commercial partners, filed misstated accounts, concealed the true state of their finances and significantly breached Premier League and UEFA spending limits.
City strongly reject those findings. The club lodged a comprehensive appeal on October 1 and says the commission's opinion contains "clear material errors, of law, principle and fact", while maintaining that it has evidence supporting its position and that the club is innocent of the accusations.
That distinction matters when discussing player contracts. The original verdict exists, but the process is not finished, the appeal remains outstanding and no final sporting sanction has yet been imposed. Players therefore cannot simply point to Manchester City's current league status and argue that the circumstances under which they signed have already fundamentally changed.
What the verdict has done is open a much more interesting legal question about the relationship between the club and its employees.
Could Man City players actually terminate their contracts?
Employment barrister Paul Gilroy KC has suggested that players could potentially have an argument based on the implied duty of trust and confidence between an employer and employee. The principle, broadly speaking, is that an employer should not behave in a way that fundamentally destroys the relationship of trust on which employment is based.
That does not mean the commission's verdict automatically makes every Manchester City contract void. A player wishing to leave on those grounds would potentially have to establish that the club's conduct was sufficiently serious to undermine that employment relationship, and such a claim could become particularly complicated while City continue to challenge the findings.
Sky Sports' Kaveh Solhekol has raised another possible route. He explained that a player might seek legal advice if he could establish that he signed his contract without being fully informed about circumstances at the club that were sufficiently important to his decision to join or remain there. Solhekol stressed that players cannot simply tear up their contracts, but said he would not completely discount the possibility of a legal challenge.
For now, that is exactly what this is: a possible legal argument rather than an established escape route.
Does relegation automatically allow players to leave?
No. Relegation by itself does not normally terminate a footballer's employment contract, and reports suggest City's players do not have straightforward relegation release clauses that would automatically allow them to leave cheaply if the club dropped out of the Premier League.
Contracts can contain individual provisions dealing with relegation, salary reductions, release clauses and other circumstances, but those terms differ from player to player and are generally confidential. Unless a particular contract contains an applicable clause, dropping into a lower division does not simply turn a player into a free agent.
That is particularly relevant in the case of Haaland. The Norwegian is exactly the kind of player supporters immediately imagine leaving if City were removed from the Premier League, but the existence of interest from other clubs or the absence of Champions League football would not by itself cancel his contract.
There is a major difference between wanting to leave, having a contractual release clause, and establishing a legal right to terminate a contract. Those three scenarios are already being blurred together in some of the discussion surrounding City's future.
Could players argue they signed without knowing the full situation?
This is where the issue becomes more interesting than a conventional relegation clause.
Manchester City's Premier League case has been running for years, so players joining the club were hardly unaware that serious charges existed. But knowing that a club faces allegations is not necessarily the same thing as knowing all the underlying facts that might eventually be established by an independent commission.
A player considering a challenge could theoretically argue that information material to his employment was not properly disclosed when he signed or renewed his contract. Whether that argument would succeed would depend heavily on the individual circumstances, what representations were made, what the player and his advisers already knew and, crucially, what survives the appeals process.
That makes sweeping statements such as "Haaland can leave for free" far too strong at this stage. There has been no ruling establishing that right, and there is currently no public evidence that Haaland or another City player is preparing such a claim.
What if Manchester City win their appeal?
City's appeal is one of the biggest reasons players are unlikely to have an immediate answer.
The club formally lodged its challenge before the deadline and continues to maintain its innocence. The independent Appeal Board hearing will take place privately, meaning the factual and legal basis underlying the current verdict could still change significantly.
If important findings are overturned, any employment argument built upon those findings could obviously become much harder to sustain. If the appeal fails and the findings remain intact, however, attention would then turn increasingly towards the sanction and what it means for the club's players, staff and commercial relationships.
That is why the contract issue cannot really be separated from the next stage of the Manchester City case.
What happens if City are relegated or expelled?
The Premier League has a wide range of potential sanctions available, although no final punishment has yet been imposed. Possible consequences discussed following the verdict include financial penalties, points deductions and, at the extreme end, removal from the competition.
A severe sanction would create an extraordinary practical problem even if players remained legally tied to their contracts. Manchester City have assembled a squad built to compete for the Premier League and Champions League, and keeping elite internationals at the club would become substantially more difficult if they were suddenly playing outside the top flight or unable to compete in Europe's biggest competition.
In that situation, some players could simply request transfers. City could negotiate sales and collect transfer fees in the conventional way, while players whose contracts contain relevant clauses could attempt to activate them.
A legal attempt to terminate a contract would be a much more dramatic step. Instead of asking City to sell him, a player would effectively be arguing that the club's conduct entitled him to end the employment relationship altogether — potentially allowing him to move without the buying club paying a normal transfer fee.
The financial consequences of that distinction could be enormous.
Could Haaland really leave Manchester City for free?
It is possible to construct a scenario in which Haaland or another City player seeks legal advice over terminating his contract, but saying that he can already leave for free goes beyond what is currently known.
There is no public indication that Haaland has challenged his contract, and reports that City's players have been informed about possible legal options should not be confused with an actual attempt to exercise one. Even if a player eventually pursued such a case, City could contest it and argue that the contract remained valid.
For a player worth an enormous transfer fee, neither side would treat such a dispute lightly. A failed attempt to terminate could itself create significant legal and financial consequences, which is another reason a conventional negotiated transfer might ultimately be more attractive than testing an unprecedented argument.
So can Manchester City players rip up their contracts?
Not simply because Manchester City have been found guilty by the independent commission.
What players may have is the possibility of exploring whether the findings, the circumstances surrounding their employment and any eventual punishment provide grounds for terminating their contracts. That would require individual legal analysis and potentially a dispute over whether City's actions fundamentally affected the employment relationship.
Manchester City's appeal makes the situation even less settled. Until that process progresses and the club's eventual sanction becomes clear, talk of a mass exodus of free agents remains speculation rather than an established consequence of the verdict.
But the question itself is no longer entirely hypothetical. If City's guilty verdict survives the appeal and the eventual punishment fundamentally changes the club's sporting position, player contracts could become one of the next major legal battlegrounds in a case that has already moved far beyond the Premier League table.
Published by Patrick Jane
03.10.2026