Exposing Manchester City’s sneaky tactics for success
One journey that a sports fan goes through as a young kid is the process of selecting your favorite teams that will determine your mood each and every week for the rest of your life. After I made some really underwhelming choices with America’s major sports, I decided to spoil myself when it came to my European soccer team, choosing Manchester City after they won the 2012 Premier league in exciting fashion against their bitter rivals Manchester United.
After more than 10 years of constantly being in title contention, Manchester City’s stranglehold on the rest of England could be erased by a private investigator.
Manchester City is currently being charged with breaching financial fair play rules over 100 times in less than a decade. You might ask, weren’t they just under investigation for the exact same thing? The key difference is that as opposed to getting investigated by UEFA, this time it is the Premier League doing the digging into the past. Being their governing body, the league has more abilities for punishment than UEFA.
The most important privilege they hold over UEFA is the ability to block any appeals to come from the club. City maintains their position that they did not break any rules. Their fans are even responding defiantly by booing the Premier League anthem before every game since the announcement. This response has seemed to give the club a boost as they are locked into a tight title race with matches against other contenders coming up.
FIFA Financial Play rules deem that a club can only spend money that they make themselves. They cannot simply benefit off the back of rich ownership because then it would completely lose touch with the fact that it just used to be the working class playing soccer. This means that Manchester City is accused of not complying with an investigation where they allegedly paid previous coach Manuel Pelligrini much more than they stated in their official documents.
Their previous punishment from UEFA (that was later overturned) of being banned from the Champions League is a cakewalk compared to what they face now. The club is subject to any of the following actions: league point deductions, match replays, blocks being placed on registration of any incoming players and expulsion from the league itself.
Expulsion from the league would be way worse than any fine the club could receive. It would effectively rip the team to shreds and cause them to lose all of their key figures. Pep Guardiola, Kevin de Bruyne, Erling Haaland and the rest of the starting 11 plus bench would surely be out the door. Especially given the fact that the Championship, League 1 and League 2 are not obligated to accept the club into their system. With something like this being so unprecedented, there is no “official” way to place them in any division.
There are eight trophies up for grabs should the Premier League deem them guilty. This would result in Manchester United gaining two more titles, Liverpool gaining one more title and Tottenham finally dusting off their empty trophy cabinet with a Carabao Cup of their own. Hilariously enough, the club would not lose any of their UEFA Champions League titles because they have failed to win one. Before they break out the confetti cannons, it is important to note that it is another possibility that the league will just void the entire season and say there was no champion for any of the league’s three trophies.
Many fans are comparing this to the Juventus situation where the club was recently docked 15 points and was sent from third place to middle of the table. This situation is different because Juventus would claim to profit on player swap and cook the books when they really weren’t making any money at all. If City is found guilty on even a quarter of their allegations, it will already top Juventus’ situation. The main difference is that Manchester City carried on cheating for a decade, while Juventus cheated during the seasons affected by the coronavirus to stay afloat and pay all of their stars.
If the punishment is anything more than a fine, it is inevitable that the club would lose all of their fair weather and maybe even their moderate weather fan. Keep in mind, this is a club that has been in the shadows of their brother across the town for their entire existence which makes die-hard fans hard to find as it is. However, no matter the decision of the private investigators, I will be sticking to my 11-year-old self’s judgment.
Jackson Wedin is a senior writing about global soccer news. His column, “Death, Taxes and Soccer” runs every other Thursday.