OLIVER HOLT: Man City have been exposed as the most famous cheats in English sporting history. The gory details revealed by the Premier League leave no doubt – nothing less than relegation will suffice for this sinister, dishonest club
The Premier League shoved the owners of Manchester City into a beam of light on a dark stage on Tuesday evening. And the club that has dominated English football for much of the last 20 years stood there, defrocked and unmasked. Guilty of all charges, the League said. But that was not all it said.
In fact, it was the tone of the League’s statement that was the most startling thing about it. They are often circumspect and dull, these offerings. Not this time. This time, it was angry and it was vengeful.
It gloried in the gory details of the industrial-scale cheating it said City had indulged in for year after year as it duped the rest of football with a ‘disguised funding scheme’.
The anger was in the vocabulary, too. ‘Sham contracts,’ the Premier League statement hissed as it outlined the tactics of the Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), which owned the club.
‘Sham commercial deals,’ it added later. Sham, sham, sham. Some had been expecting a conciliatory move from the League in the wake of its victory but this was anything but that.
To read that statement was to see the Premier League dancing on the grave of the club that had come to embody its excellence and its appeal. All the exasperation and all the frustration of years of obstruction and intransigence from City’s Abu Dhabi owners as they fought the 115 charges ranged against them came spilling out on that page.
This was an end to patience. This was an end to keeping one’s counsel. This was an end to diplomacy.
After the accusation, this was the confrontation. The most eye-catching part of it was the revelation of the extent of City’s wrongdoing. This was the juiciest steak the Premier League had to offer and they tossed it out into the public domain with uncommon relish.
‘The purpose of these schemes,’ its statement said, ‘was found to have been to artificially inflate the club’s revenues, and reduce its costs, by more than £900million during the affected period, to appear to comply with financial rules.’
Manchester City’s trophies were dishonestly won. The club cheated and cheated and cheated to get to a position where it was held up as the exemplar of all that was good in the game
The level of City’s duplicity laid bare the extent of the advantage they had gained over the period involved (pictured: Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano)
This is English football’s civil war in all its ugliness and its violence and its ferocity. The League’s statement hinted at what is to come. City have until Friday to launch an appeal, which they will almost certainly do but when that is done, it appears the League will press for severe sanctions to quell the inferno of City’s misdemeanours.
The level of City’s duplicity, outlined by the Premier League, laid bare the extent of the advantage that they had gained over the period involved. The punishment will have to fit that. It is harder to see City escaping relegation than it was on Tuesday morning. Anything lesser than that, the League will surely believe, will not be enough to deal with the crimes uncovered.
In the hours that followed the release of the statement, television screens showed reruns of City’s moments of triumph – Phil Foden holding aloft the Premier League trophy on one of the club’s many open-top bus rides, Pep Guardiola and City’s chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, standing together on the pitch at the Etihad Stadium, holding up six fingers to signify the number of leagues Guardiola won.
The footage did not speak of triumphs any more, though. It spoke of subterfuge and shame. Those scenes of jubilation, it now appears, were dishonestly earned. Those trophies were dishonestly won. The club had cheated and cheated and cheated to get to a position where it was held up as the exemplar of all that was good in the game.
The more we know, the worse this feels. The more we know, the more stupid we seem that we were duped, that we believed.
This is moving into Lance Armstrong territory now. This is Chicago Black Sox territory. City, a team once famous for hitting new heights of dominance, are now the most famous cheats in English sporting history.
Their owners are still sticking to their story, even in the face of the findings of the independent commission and the details now provided by the Premier League. Their response has not been humility or contrition. Their response has been, actually, the sinister language of threat and reprisal.
City’s owners are serious people. Al Mubarak, many say, is the equivalent of the prime minister of the UAE. Others equate his role to cabinet secretary. He wields much power and he is the guardian of much wealth. No one takes him on like this and now that someone has, he is fighting to the end.
For now, City are sticking to Al Mubarak’s insistence that they have ‘irrefutable evidence’ that proves their innocence.
It is a curious defence. If the evidence is irrefutable, why has it not been presented already? Why has it been hidden away? Were these men not so powerful and astute, it would be tempting to say that their stance is becoming faintly comical.
The more we know, the more stupid we seem that we were duped, that we believed. This is moving into Lance Armstrong territory now
City are sticking to Al Mubarak’s insistence that they have ‘irrefutable evidence’ that proves their innocence. It is a curious defence. If the evidence is irrefutable, where is it?
‘Manchester City FC is both disappointed and surprised by the opinion of the Premier League Commission,’ a City statement said. ‘The club is innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League and a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its positions, relating to this case.
‘The club will therefore be relentless, and where necessary proactive, in any and all appropriate regulatory and legal forums.’
Relentless? That is redolent of Al Mubarak’s notorious assertion more than a decade ago, when City were fighting UEFA, that he would rather spend £30m on the best 50 lawyers in the world and sue UEFA for the next 10 years than lose the Financial Fair Play case in which they were adversaries.
I wonder if some of those who have lionised Al Mubarak for his statements will reconsider now. They said they would when it came to a point when City’s guilt was outlined for all to see. Well, it is out there now. It is there in all its sad and ugly detail. Perhaps some of City’s fans will start to realise now that they, too, have been deceived.
City’s owners, though, will not back down. It is not their style. After months and years of shadow-boxing, the gloves are off. And City stand alone in the ring.