When Manchester City’s almost entirely guilty verdict was unveiled on Friday, it was a moment that many had anticipated for the best part of half a decade.

There was little jubilation, but from a Nottingham Forest perspective, there was perhaps a moment of vindication.

Forest, then-managed by Nuno Espirito Santo, were handed a four-point deduction for an FFP breach, in a process that was exceptionally quick.

City were alleged to have broken some 114 rules more than Forest and, until now, there had been no indication that justice was even close to being served.

That justice may still be some years from fruition, due to the expected lengthy appeals process once a sanction is eventually handed down.

But while people debate about what dismal fate should await City, whether stripped titles, a points deduction, fines, a transfer ban or a combination of all four, it is important not to lose sight of one important fact: there are no winners from this situation.

First of all, it feels important to clarify that Forest were not directly impacted by any rule-breaking by City.

Their charges relate to breaches spanning from 2009 until 2018, during which time Forest were not in the Premier League, and only played the Cityzens once, when they thrashed them 3-0 away from home in the FA Cup, way back in 2009.

Of course, there are much wider-reaching impacts, many of which are difficult to properly visualise, due to the frankly limitless knock-on effects of almost a decade of football that will now inevitably be asterisked, whether officially or in the minds of fans.

The simple fact is that nobody should have wanted Manchester City to have committed the major breaches that they have.

Premier League titles, cup wins, relegations, European qualifications and so much more will now fall under a microscope. Should they have stood, who was wronged if not, and how different would the footballing landscape look today without almost a decade of cheating.

It feels incredibly hollow to suggest that nine years of football history are disingenuous, but that is the bleak reality of why there can be no winners in this situation.

Even fans of clubs who stand to potentially claim retrospective league titles, if sanctions follow that course, would not rejoice at the outcome.

Liverpool would stand to gain two league titles, having finished second in the Premier League, behind only City, twice during the nine-year period, but many of their fans would feel indifferent if they were now handed league titles from seasons gone by.

"I want Man City to be stripped of the titles," Stuart, a Liverpool fan, told me, "But I wouldn't want Liverpool to be handed them. Just void it, because in my head Liverpool would still have 20 league titles, not 22."

There has still been no official word from Manchester City, who continue to insist their innocence, or the Premier League, regarding the widely reported guilty verdicts.

But already news has emerged that several clubs have long been preparing legal action against City, in the event that they are found guilty of cheating.

While there are many unknowns, it is likely that close to a decade of fresh legal action would follow, as a large cloud looms over what has long been paraded as the greatest league on Earth.

Football fans, players and club owners should all want nothing more than a fair game where success is won on merit, not by cheating or as a result of legal proceedings.

Of course, when people or clubs fall foul of the rules, they need to be punished as harshly as the rules allow, but in anybody's ideal world, it would never get to that point in the first place.

But what comes from such punishments remains to be seen. In previous high-profile scandals, like when Juventus were relegated following the 2006 Calciopoli scandal, the affected leagues have struggled to recover, even decades later, in large part due to the fallout.