Welcome, then, to the age of asterisk. Whatever punishment Manchester City and their sovereign wealth fund owners receive at the end of this process, the fact remains, everything is tainted now.
Overturn the tables, scatter the gold coins. Throw your medals in the bin. You cheated to win them. Whatever that thing was, it’s done. Stolen glory, stolen income, stolen joy. Every chant, every “we won the lot”, every awkward documentary scene about the deep, throbbing heart of this empire of love. It all looks odd, sinister, cold, sloppy, but also, and this is always the best response, utterly absurd.
This is not over of course. We still work on the principle of innocent until repeatedly proven guilty, pending mega-bucks final appeals. There could yet be a dramatic reversal at the next stage. And if so, fair enough. Trust the process. So for now we must also asterisk the asterisk. It should also be pointed out that City still deny all allegations, even when proven at the first instance. They have also, in fairness, not been found guilty of all of those 100-plus charges. Maybe the club can spin this, take the positives, a vital away charge to take into the appeal.
But for now this is a good day for football. And also a good day for, of all things, the world. The Premier League may seem an unlikely revolutionary. But in the age of despotism, of endless chatter about the decline of the rules-based international order, any tribunal that finds the sovereign wealth fund of the UAE guilty of breaches of minor but still vital sporting regulations deserves its own statue outside the Royal Courts of Justice. People in wigs: not always slaves to power, or indeed the enemies of the people.
Mainly this is a great day for the Premier League, which must be commended above all for its refusal to bend. There has been frustration at the time it has taken to reach this verdict. Technically it is a full eight years since Der Spiegel published the first allegations of industrial-scale cheating. And spare a thought here too for Rui Pinto, the original whistleblower, currently in witness protection after being found guilty of information-related offences. This verdict suggest football’s greatest vigilante was also right, or right enough. Raise a glass, José Bloggs of Oporto, or whatever you go by these days.
That extreme delay is simply another consequence of taking on an entity that is willing to spend so aggressively on the world’s most energetic lawyers, to threaten to bankrupt the organisation it signed up to serve and nourish. It always seemed worrying an accusation of not cooperating with financial reporting, a charge that on the face of it could be cleared up in half a day, should take three years to reach a verdict.
But this is testimony to the lawfare-level response. In this context, and pending a proper sanction, the entire case speaks to the basic sanctity of the rule of law, of applying the same rules to all irrespective of status, a small but high-profile rejection of the idea wealth and political heft can steamroller regulation and process.
And that punishment really is key. Because everything is on the cards here, not least the much-trailed potential destruction of the brand. There has always been a whispered suggestion the league is taking a hammer to its own knees in this process. That thing we sold you all those years? Well, it’s not straight. The product you paid for and believed in wasn’t real.
Arguably everyone who bought a Sky Sports subscription in that period now has a legal claim against City. I signed up for sport. This was an exhibition event. But the Premier League has been rigid in the right way. What is that legacy actually worth, how much more damaged will it be, if its owners shy away from their own rules and allow the serial champions to shortcut their way to plastic success? The answer is: very little. At that point we may as well all turn off the lights and abandon the stage to the world of scripted product.
It is important in all this to spare a thought for City fans, who are innocent of anything other than wanting their team to win and believing the evidence presented to their eyes. There will be some who see conspiracy, because they want to, who choose to fight on, or pretend not to understand. We live in an age where even billionaire inherited rulers get to style themselves as victims of oppressive power structures.
But the fact is the rules do matter, even if you think they shouldn’t exist. They matter because other teams were abiding by them. Other teams didn’t buy players, lost bidding wars, lost games and league titles by fine margins during a period where one team was saying, well, thanks but no thanks. This is why cheating matters. You can disagree with the offside law and try to get it changed. But if you just ignore it and keep on hammering the ball into the net, you’ve destroyed your own sport.
City’s fans deserve sympathy generally. They don’t run the club, they simply support it. They have been loyal to their owners, even while those owners, on the basis of this decision, were turning the club into a toxic entity, a parasite on its host and on the basic idea of sport. What is the right response to this? Some will simply feel sad at the tarnishing of memories.
But there is also a legitimate suggestion it is time for those owners to sell up and move on. This has been a disgraceful episode in so many ways: the casual cheating, the refusal to mitigate or compromise, the assault on English football, the attempt to bleed the rest of the field dry.
The fact is anyone with an interest in justice, equality and abiding by universal rules, should be pleased with this result, including City fans. Although there is of course still a huge opportunity for the process to hole itself below the waterline.
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Guilt followed by a minor slap on the wrist. This would asterisk the asterisk, would provide a complete reversal of all that goodwill. What would be the point of going through this only to blink at the sanctions stage? And yes, this is the job of an independent tribunal, but the league will have agency in how this is interpreted, through its submission and its evidence.
And there is very little mitigation here. Not reporting financial information might sound trivial in another sphere. But in football, where success is defined by expenditure, this is deliberate and highly effective deceit. City have continued to spend freely, to win things under this shadow, in a space where more than simply results and titles are at stake. Football is a zero-sum game. When you cheat, you’re taking money and opportunities out of the pockets of others.
Not to mention glory, happiness, life chances, things people work and bleed for all their lives. In their place you’re introducing failure, doubt, career regression, moving home, moving jobs, cutting ties, losing connections, all based on skewed results on a sports field, all based on cheating.
The list of teams that might have won league titles in those years reads: Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal. Perhaps these clubs will even consider suing City for compensation. The Premier League could pre-empt this by stripping titles and reallocating glory. That still feels like an overload of asterisks. But this is what happens when you cheat. You degrade the experience for everyone.
There are two final things worth saying. Last month Bloomberg reported that the UAE had been in touch with the UK government expressing concerns about the Premier League process, and potentially, it was implied, damaging the prospect of that wider relationship.
If true, and it is simply a suggestion, this would demonstrate yet another profound misunderstanding of the culture you’re buying into. The law is not supposed to bend to power and influence. Does anyone actually want to live in a world where this is the case?
But then, it is also worth remembering that skimping on some financial rules is hardly the worst thing the UAE has been accused of in those years. There are accusations of supporting the bloodshed in Sudan, as well as numerous human rights abuses, the curtailment of dissent and massive social inequality.
Whatever its ultimate outcome the entire process stands as a warning for every sport with it eyes in a spin at the offer of transformative financial investment. Look very hard at who you get into bed with. Jam today, pain tomorrow. And it never, ever comes for free.
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