The Irishman spoke at length about Everton's punishment and about why the long wait to learn City's fate is damaging the legitimacy of the league.

The 38-year-old said: "It had nothing to do with us lads that are on the pitch, and you're so proud to play for Everton Football Club. You know how much it means to all the fans, and maybe because of decisions that have been made higher up, maybe without a thought, I don't know, before you know it, you've got a 10-point deduction.

"We weren't in a great place as a team back then, so a 10-point deduction for us at that time, people might forget, nearly guaranteed relegation for how we were playing. Thankfully, we'd started that season quite well, so the 10-point deduction, I think, took us from, I don't know, 15th to second from bottom but I just felt that it happened so quickly.

"I feel like it happened so quickly, and then on appeal, it was taken down to six, so it tells you that it wasn't right to begin with, the 10 points, for the appeal straight away to come back with four. So that came back with four, lifted us up again, and then I think it went to April time, and we got two taken off us again, which dropped us down another couple of places.

"And that's April, it's a month before the end of the season. So, very frustrated with whoever the decision makers are to overspend, that they can do that to the players, they can do it to the fanbase.

"It is their life, it is everything to them, that decisions can be made - and I don't know the ins and outs of it all - but how it can't be watched a bit more carefully, that it doesn't get to a case where it's, well, here's 12 points because the decision-makers have made some bad decisions, and players and fans and people who have supported Everton their whole life are getting punished for this. Thankfully we got ourselves out of it."

Following this, Manchester City have now been found guilty of 114 charges concerning violations of Premier League financial regulations between the 2009/10 and 2017/18 seasons.

An independent commission determined that, throughout that timeframe, the club orchestrated "sham contracts" as well as "relying on sham agreements to artificially inflate the club's revenues and reduce its costs," as part of a plan to conceal secret funding exceeding £830million.

Reflecting on the ramifications of that case for Everton and the Premier League, Coleman said: "Well, I mean, looking back, it did affect Champions League positions.

"It's very hard to say because that time's gone by. It'd be hard to say, oh, I missed out on the Champions League.

"And if they continue to win titles, the best league in the world having that massive question mark over it is strange. I know we're talking about lawyers coming in and getting involved, but how Everton and Nottingham Forest could be dealt with so quickly, so efficiently – I know we said, yeah, hands up, we got it wrong – but surely, it shouldn't get to this point for the best league in the world.

"Obviously, yeah, we were affected Champions League-wise and that, but I'm not going to be knocking on anyone's door chasing lost bonuses or that."