A quick quiz question – what do The Wizard of Oz, Super Mario Bros 2 and the ninth season of Dallas all have in common?
Feel free to grab yourself a hot drink and mull it over for a moment.
Now for the answer.
If you figured out that the plots of all three never really happened – because in their endings it was revealed that they existed only in the dreams of one of the lead characters – then very well done indeed.
So do the guilty verdicts mean the Premier League seasons between 2009-10 and 2017-18 should now be considered a figment of our collective imaginations too?
City have until Friday to mount an appeal. If that appeal is unsuccessful, then, at some point, the club will be given some sort of punishment.
Whether sanctions will retcon the past in any way is unknown.
And about moving forwards? Right now football fans, both of City and other clubs across the country, do not know whether the football they are watching is ‘real’ or not.
Are City actually top of the league and in a title challenge, or will they be docked points later in the season?
If they are linked with another team’s star player, could that transfer happen or will they be unable to make deals at some point?
Will they be in the Premier League next season or will they be expelled and will there need to be a quite significant rejigging of the pyramid to accommodate them somewhere else?
And then there are questions about what comes later down the line.
Is anybody else breaking rules right now, which fans will only find out about in the future?
Does the potential for years of results to be retroactively kiboshed undermine the Premier League’s popularity with fans, players and sponsors?
And can the action fans are watching week in, week out ever fully be trusted again?
The answers to those questions will determine the future of the biggest league in the world’s most popular game.