This might be the downfall of City as we know it. Manchester City have been slammed with 100 counts of financial breaches by the Premier League, leaving them open to a possible demotion to the Championship.
This is huge and horrific news for the reigning Premier League champions,
Now, I can’t say that this is all that shocking as Man City was already charged (but were acquitted on a technicality) by UEFA for breaking financial obligations (i.e.: Financial Fair Play) for their accounting and transfer actions from 2009 up until 2018, but this is the first time that City and their ownership group, City Football Group and Sheikh Mansour, might be held accountable for their nefarious dealings.
And I think I can speak for everyone when I say IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME! It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that a club like Man City, who was really only relevant since the Mansour bought the team in 2009, shouldn’t be able to spend $300M+ on players year after year without massive, illegal outside investment.
It is just unfathomable that a team who used to make less than €30M/season, which wasn’t even in the Top-5 of the Premier League, all the way back in 2009 can now make upwards of €730M and top the football charts as the most profitable club in the world. Yes, that includes teams like Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, Juventus, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Atletico Madrid, Tottenham Hotspur, and Napoli.
Sure, inflation of currency and the dominating success Man City has had in the past decade helped improve their financial statements but inflating it by €700M to be the most popular club in world football is flatly ridiculous. Just look at the size of fanbases, online polls of one’s favorite team, and the number of City jerseys you see people wearing around the world compared to the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Man United, Liverpool, and Bayern Munich.
You don’t see City at the top of said rankings.
But, by what City’s owners have reported their financial earnings to be, it would mean that their jerseys and merchandise should be the most common apparel that is wore by the public, while they are also the most supported club in the world. And we all know that isn’t the case.
City just isn’t nearly as profitable or well-enough supported to be as profitable as City Football Group and Mansour have made them out to be in the media and on their accounting statements as the club isn’t on same level as their archrival clubs, such as Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool.
Therefore, Mansour and his cronies have been inflating the value of the club and the money it earns by securing sham partnerships/sponsorships with “independent” businesses that allowed them to pay for players, managers, and new training facilities these last 14 years. Or so the Premier League alleges with this report/investigation summary.
Of course, nothing has been proven yet and City are still innocent in the eyes of the law until proven guilty, but that doesn’t mean I can’t judge them personally in the court of public opinion.
So, from here on out, this is my personal opinion ONLY. And my personal opinion is that Manchester City, Sheikh Mansour, and City Football Club are a bunch of frauds, hacks, cheaters, and should be stripped of all their glories during the years the investigation is covering (2009-2018).
The titles City won in 2012 (Man Utd came 2nd), 2014 (Liverpool came in 2nd), and 2018 (Man Utd came in 2nd) should all be stripped from their trophy cabinets as they were able to win them through the transfers and hirings of managers they never should have been able to afford.
Yeah, I realize that I sound like a biased United fan trying to discredit City, but Man United were robbed twice and Liverpool once of a Premier League title because of City’s wrongful and cheating transfer and hiring behaviors.
The very history of Manchester United and Liverpool should be different as Sir Alex Ferguson could have won back-to-back titles before his retirement in 2013, Liverpool could have ended their title drought 6-years earlier in 2014, and Jose Mourinho would have added to his legendary reputation and avoided all of the misery that came with his sacking in 2019 if he won the Premier League in 2018.
Do see why this is so important to punish postmortem? Such blatant and arrogant disregard for the rule of English football law should not be allowed to go rewarded, even if the behavior was discovered later on.
All of Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France titles were stripped when he admitted to cheating years after the fact, as well as Juventus’ titles after the Calciopoli scandal. Why shouldn’t Man City get a similar punishment?
However, I get that there is a small chance of City’s titles getting stripped, so I hope they get some massive points deduction or even a relegation into the Championship when all is said and done.
I would pay to see Sheikh Mansour’s face if he had to host the likes of Stoke and Millwall in his billion-dollar Etihad Stadium on a Tuesday night in the Championship.
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