The deeper Manchester City’s ongoing dispute with the Premier League runs, the more severe the potential consequences - both on and off the pitch - become for those at the Etihad Stadium.

After being pronounced guilty by the English top-flight and swiftly launching an appeal against the commission's decision, suggestions are now being made that the eventual punishments could spell the end of the current ownership’s tenure.

Those claims have recently been reinforced by one high-profile journalist with a detailed knowledge of the saga, who has also suggested that Manchester City's combative attitude will only serve to make the final sanctions even harsher. 

That is according to journalist Duncan Castles, who claims that the consequences facing Manchester City, should the Abu Dhabi-owned club "continue to escalate its conflict" with the Premier League, are far more drastic than points deductions, fines and transfer bans.

The latest suggestion outlines three potentially disastrous outcomes: An outright expulsion from the Premier League, refusal by the English Football League to let City into any of the next three divisions, and - most worrying of all - the removal of City’s directors, executives, and owners.

If these possibilities came to fruition for the club, it is a scenario that would not simply relegate Manchester City but remove the club from the country’s professional leagues entirely.

It should be stressed that this is Castles’ reported understanding rather than any confirmed Premier League position, and that he also describes these measures as being conditional on Manchester City prolonging the battle, with no punishment announced.

The club were found guilty of serious breaches of the Premier League's financial rules across nine seasons, and a separate hearing will now decide what sanction actually follows. Manchester City strenuously deny any wrongdoing, as they have from the outset.

The club has branded the ruling “unsafe” and launched a swift appeal, which seems to be an example of the continued resistance Duncan Castles suggests will provoke the sternest possible punishment. 

Speaking on Duncan Castles’ podcast, fellow journalist Nick Harris offered a more conventional, if still brutal, prediction, using the sanctions handed to Everton and Nottingham Forest for previous financial breaches as a baseline.

“A 300-500 point deduction [for Manchester City] would seem reasonable,” Harris said. “Certainly enough to see them relegated.”

He went on to raise the question of timing, as he explained, “Then you get into the issue of: when do you give it to them? Will that happen this season, meaning that whatever happens this season they will definitely be relegated?”

Although a sanction of that nature would stop short of the wholesale expulsion Duncan Castles describes, it would have a similar end result in removal from the Premier League. Expulsion itself would be unprecedented, and crucially would not be imposed without the support of other top-flight clubs.

When a relegation-level points deduction is one of the more lenient punishments being touted, there is no denying the sheer scale of the problem facing Enzo Maresca’s side. How much of it actually materialises, of course, will hinge on the club’s appeal and the sanctions hearing still to come.