Main victims of Man City's 'cheating' revealed: Who suffered the MOST from the club's glory years - and how much it cost them - after Premier League's seismic guilty verdict

In their seminal book Soccernomics, published in 2009, Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski conclude that the single biggest predictor for a team's success is how much they spend on wages. Pay more and you'll likely win more.

Around the same time, UEFA put out its own report into the link between finances and future triumphs across Europe's major leagues. 'There is a strong correlation between club spending and success on the pitch and is one of the biggest factors determining the likelihood of success,' it found. 'Money does not guarantee success but it does improve the probability of victory.'

Apropos of absolutely nothing, it was also in 2009-10, the second season under their new Abu Dhabi owners, that Manchester City's wage bill jumped by £50million to nearly twice the Premier League average. Before their arrival, City paid £54m in wages and the top-flight average was £60m. Now, it was £133m when the average was still only £70m. By the time 2012-13 ticked around, with a league title under their belts, they were paying 2.6 times the Premier League average. The season before that, the iconic final-day drama against QPR, they paid 2.4 times it.

As the bombshell news broke on Friday that City had been found guilty of the vast majority of the 115 Premier League charges, something else became clear: over that nine-season period from 2009, they had bought their way to the top and done so unfairly. The question now is at what cost - not just to themselves, of course, but to other clubs in the process.

Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester United all served legal notices last year reserving their right to take action should City be found guilty. They will argue, should the verdict stand, that City's misdemeanours cost them titles, trophies, European qualification and, above all when it comes to these things, money.

So, just how much has City's rule breaking cost their rivals?

First, some parameters. You can argue, quite convincingly, that City's actions over those nine seasons built the very foundations for the rampant success that followed under Pep Guardiola and that, without them, despite his genius, they would unlikely have had the platform or finances in place to achieve it, but, for now, we will stick to that period between 2009-10 and 2017-18.

So, apologies in advance to Mikel Arteta for those two second-placed finishes behind City and sorry, too, to Jurgen Klopp for those two runners-up spots with 97 and 92 points, and to Watford for their FA Cup final defeat.

Every Premier League side during this time can feel aggrieved about something, whether it's the few million quid difference for finishing a place lower than they might. Clubs could also argue that missing out on cash or European football would have cost them in the transfer market too and they could have signed bigger, better superstars for long-term success. That, again, is far too deep a rabbit hole.

What it does all show, however, is that things are about to get messy.