Roy Keane tells Manchester City stars to bin medals after guilty verdict

Roy Keane says Manchester City’s players should put their medals in the bin.

The former Manchester United captain gave his verdict after City were found guilty of all charges relating to Premier League financial rules. He was speaking as an ITV pundit during England’s Nations League match against the Czech Republic on 30 September 2026.

“If I was a player, I’d be 100% sticking those medals in the bin. Of course you would, it’s cheating,” Keane said The Guardian. His words were blunt. They landed hard because they were aimed at players, not executives.

The Premier League confirmed the guilty verdict after a long investigation into the club’s finances. City were found to have boosted their income by more than £900m through sham contracts with commercial partners, according to The Guardian. Those are deals the league says were not at fair market value and were used to get around spending limits.

The period under investigation runs from 2009 to 2018. In those nine seasons City won eight trophies, including three Premier League titles. That success helped turn them from challengers into the dominant English side of the era.

City continue to deny any wrongdoing after the verdicts. The club’s position has not changed through years of legal argument, and no punishment has yet been confirmed.

Former City defender Micah Richards said the outcome left him devastated and heartbroken. He spoke on The Rest is Football podcast, where he has often talked with pride about his time at the club.

For fans, this means a strange split. The goals, the parades and the last-day drama all happened. They were felt in real time by thousands in the stadium and millions beyond it. What changes now is how those memories are recorded, and whether medals won on the pitch keep their value when the accounts behind them are ruled to be false.