They did not waste time, the cartel. Within hours of the Court of Arbitration announcement, there was a remote scrambling of Manchester City's elite rivals and a discussion about the next plan of action.
This is not over. There is still a Premier League investigation into City ongoing.
There is still the chance to pressure and influence those proceedings, as was attempted with UEFA's case, when nine leading Premier League clubs — Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea, Leicester, Wolves, Newcastle and Burnley — wrote to CAS on March 9 to argue City should be excluded from Europe while their appeal was heard.