Manchester City have joined Liverpool in being banned from signing academy players for tapping-up two schoolboys – including one aged just 11.

City were given the same length suspension as the Anfield club, a two-year transfer embargo on players registered with a rival Premier League or EFL side in the preceding 18 months, with the second year’s ban suspended for three years.

They were also fined £300,000, £200,000 more than Liverpool, who were last month found guilty of tapping up one schoolboy footballer and offering inducements to him and his family.

The fallout from that case has been exclusively documented by The Telegraph, which also revealed that City’s recruitment of three academy players was under scrutiny.

The 11-year-old, now 12, they were found to have broken the rules trying to sign was a midfielder who joined them from Everton last summer, the other being a 15-year-old midfielder from Wolverhampton Wanderers.