1,327 days.
That is how long it has taken for the 115 charges against Manchester City to finally reach a conclusion. With a legal process stretching across nearly four years, it was almost impossible to stop cynicism from settling in. The collective sentiment across English football had calcified into weariness: the belief that endless motions, procedural stalls, and sheer institutional exhaustion would eventually run down the clock.
Yet here we are, with David Ornstein of the Athletic breaking the news that the independent commission has found them guilty on virtually every count.
Manchester City have been found guilty on almost all of the charges relating to breaches of the Premier League’s financial regulations.
The sanctions have not been decided, with all possibilities remaining on the table, and City are expected to appeal.
This is a watershed moment for the Premier League and honestly I am still a bit shocked and feeling disbelief that we are actually at this point. It didn’t feel like it would ever happen after all of those days since the initial charges dropped dragged on.
We can’t accept cynicism as defense mechanism
Finding Manchester City guilty is great, but it is only half the battle; the sanctions and punishments against them must reflect the institutional damage that they caused with their cheating.
It would be easy to want to protect ourselves from disappointment expecting a toothless or token penalty. They are too powerful with their connections at the state level, the Premier League won’t want to tarnish their brand, Manchester City will find ways to drag this on even further delaying things.
I can sometimes fall into this thinking; we have seen the rich, connected, and powerful escape justice far too often to rule this out as a possibility. If this happened I would be disappointed, but I wouldn’t be shocked.
I think that this situation is so different that even with the high-powered lawyers and the geopolitical power that there will be real consequences. Sporting integrity still matters and sporting achievement is largely zero-sum. Manchester City’s achievements have come at the expense of the other clubs in the Premier League. The other clubs have made hard choices following the rules, they have been punished (sometimes quite severely) for breaking the same rules in a less brazen fashion, and this gives me hope that because the Premier League is driven by the member clubs that they won’t accept a slap on the wrist outcome.
They attacked the heart of the Premier League
The reality of the Premier League is that it isn’t a government body, it is a collective of the 20 clubs. That means that it depends on everyone acting in good faith and self-policing. The league is not a state regulator with subpoena power, the ability to do raids of the corporate headquarters looking for evidence, or use police power to enforce their rules.
There is a social contract and norms that govern things. It is built on mutual trust that everyone will have honest disclosures, accurate accounting in the books, and actually make admissions when they break the rules.
Manchester City have totally broken this understanding. They didn’t merely spend beyond the allowed limits, they subverted all of the norms, agreements, and expectations of transparency along the way. They have resorted to lawfare just as they promised that they would, rather than comply with the rules of the competitions that they are in.
Khaldoon [Al Mubarak] says he would rather spend £30m on the best 50 lawyers in the world and sue them for the next 10 years than agree a financial penalty
This to me is the largest issue and where I think that the League should feel that harsh punishment is warranted. If they can do this and still come away with just a slap on the wrist, how can any set of rules that the league establishes ever have any real teeth or weight?
If bad-faith obstruction goes unpunished, the league’s entire regulatory structure collapses. If they hadn’t gone to the lengths of obstruction, the other clubs probably wouldn’t have liked it but they would have accepted more of a slap on the wrist punishment.
If the punishment is only financial then it is no punishment at all. They are an arm of Abu Dhabi and even a massive fine wouldn’t move the needle against that.
The only sanctions that would truly matter and would restore faith while feeling worthwhile are sporting. I think that there would be just about any option on the table here and there are some creative options available here including multi-year points deductions or even expulsion from the league.
Flawed rules are no excuse for bad faith
There are legitimate criticisms of the current financial rules that have been put into place. They do protect the incumbents and make it harder for upstarts to disrupt the established order.
The truism that life isn’t fair works here. Manchester City knew about the rules for the competition that they competed in. They had the opportunity to convince the other clubs that they weren’t the right choice, but they were ultimately put into place. For them to unilaterally break them while everyone else operated under the constraints isn’t any sort of principled rebellion to be lauded.
There is no doubt that the coaches and players earned the points and won the trophies on the field. This however can’t be separated from the mechanics of how these teams were assembled. The elite depth, the world-class facilities, the best coaching staffs, the astronomical wages, the ability to attract first-team and youth talent was all built on and financed by the infractions they have been found guilty of.
It will without a doubt hurt the brand and potentially dent the commercial appeal of the Premier League to give out a severe punishment here. That shouldn’t stop them from doing what is right here; not acting will do more damage to the league and will taint everything that this team does going forward.
Final thoughts
Personally, I would love to see a big points deduction for them and a multi-year transfer ban. In addition, and this is more symbolic, I want to see them stripped of the titles that they have won since they started cheating. They have to give back every Premier League trophy that they have won and they cannot officially claim any of those titles. I don’t want to retroactively award the teams that finished in second place the title and instead there is just no winners those years. It sucks, but we have to sit with the shame and it will be a constant reminder of the cheating that happened.
Finding them guilty is wonderful news. It shows that even with the immense pressure and fancy lawyers that all the money in the world can buy that the system can still work. It took too long and has been a tough road, but we have gotten here.
This isn’t the end however and there are still some major hurdles to make sure that we get actual justice.
A soft punishment here would essentially codify that the rules are optional if you have enough will and the power to threaten the league.
The legitimacy of the league still hangs in the balance. Does state-backed wealth trump everything, or are there actual limits and rules that must be followed?
I am happy today that we got this verdict and now we wait to see what comes next. Hopefully this existential breach is met with an extraordinary punishment.
Without harsh sanctions that reflect the degree of the cheating and the league wide impact, all this waiting would just have been pointless. Sanctions should include being stripped of titles, having to return the trophies, have their name removed and the titles awarded to the runners up. Of course they should be relegated to the lowest division and prevented from acquiring players first a decade. I’m for banning them from the FA and being subject to lawsuits from each of the 20 teams in the division for each year they cheated along with fan club lawsuits too. Fuck them forever.
“There is a social contract and norms that govern things. It is built on mutual trust that everyone will have honest disclosures, accurate accounting in the books, and actually make admissions when they break the rules.” Exactly and very well said. If City cannot be trusted to follow the rules and will not be honest and will obstruct all investigations and scorch the earth in litigation, there has to be a substantial punishment or all of that becomes the new norm.