It's pretty ironic that the same people that say they hate the whole destiny narrative in OP and will say they don't want any special lineage etc. for their favs are the same ones that will say that only those that have CoC can stand at the top of the verse, when we know that CoC is something that you're a born with and not something you can develop 💀
Anyways, personally I don't really subscribe to the notion that a lack of CoC implies that one cannot reach the upper echelons of strength in the verse as I personally doubt that all of the top tiers are CoC users. Also, there is the Captain Trio example where Law doesn't have CoC but is comparable to the other two and arguably stronger than Kidd who has CoC, same Law many on here touted would become one of the very strongest in the verse EoS prior to his fall to Blackbeard. Moreover, Sanji not having CoC will not stunt his growth in comparison to the Luffy and Zoro strength wise as Oda will always give Sanji and equivalent PU to those two so from that perspective, Sanji doesn't have to have it.
All that said however, I'm not Oda, if Oda believes that CoC is a pre-requisite for those those that stand in the upper echelons of the verse to have then Sanji will have it as he's of that mold imo. Sanji is not only the 3rd strongest straw hat but is also part of the monster trio dynamic and is stated to be one of the wings of the future Pirate King (i.e. Luffy) along side Zoro so he has the potential to be in the upper echelons of the verse come EoS.
There's also the fact that Luffy's crew is special and will most likely achieve what no other Pirate Crew before them has making them the greatest crew in the verse surpassing the likes of the Rocks Pirates and even the Roger Pirates. These two crews had more than 2 confirmed CoC users, which might simply be a coincidence but if it is by design then it makes sense for the SHs to also have more than 2 CoC users, in which case, Sanji will also have it.
Lastly I'm not sure really sure why folks are saying it's too late in the series for Sanji to manifest it, when It took Zoro 1000+ chapters to actually manifest his (i.e. this was 500+ chapters after Luffy manifested CoC)💀. Then there's WCI argument of Sanji having his own arc etc. I could get into why I think it wouldn't have made sense for Sanji to have manifested CoC on WCI but I can't be arsed to
. All I'll say tho is that Zoro didn't require a personal arc to manifest his so I don't see why Sanji needs one to do so.