Manchester City: what happens next? If they lose can they survive?

So now we know that the authorities have seemingly agreed with most fans (although we can’t be quite sure of that given the limited level of publicity and research), and  Manchester City have been found guilty of “the vast majority of the 134 disciplinary charges” (there is not much agreement of how many they were found guilty of although most source say all but one) brought against the club by the Premier League.

ManC have insisted throughout that everything is done in private – and I am not at all sure why they were granted that privilege but they were.   So now what will be particularly interesting will be if all the details are revealed when the case if finally concluded (something in 2033 at the current rate).

But as the Guardian has said, “we do not even have an official confirmation that the three-person judicial panel has reached a verdict.”   Which is a bit of a bonkers way to run a case but then the whole case is bonkers.   I mean, based on what has been said, ManC could now say, “no we ain’t been found guilty at all,” and then what would we all do?  (They could also go and form a league of their own; what then?)

But for now most agree they have been found guilty and will appeal, and I suppose slowly over time ManC will wake up and realise that their insistence on utter secrecy is making them look like an utter load of prats.  I know in many countries trials and hearings are in secret, but not here.  I can only hope that at the end of this affair the League realize their error in allowing and secret hearings this and change the rules: all hearings in public.  (As a person who once challenged a court in England on this matter in the midst of proceedings, and won, I feel I have a bit of form here).

We also don’t know how appeals are organised, except that the guilty party (ManC in case you missed that) have 14 days to say they will appeal.  The benefit to ManC is they get a second shot of claiming their innocence, but the downside is that appeal arguments in that they can’t just re-run the first trial; they need to point to specific errors from the first run through.  And appeals are normally made public, so we might get to know something.

Appeals are based on the fact that the accused have been found guilty – not on the punishment meted out.  Evidence which for some reason was not available before however, can be submitted,  and we normally get a decision in a month.   After that there is nothing more – Manc can’t appeal an appeal unless they argue that the original appeal body abused the process – which in such a public case as this would seem incredibly unlikely, and indeed there were quite a few prelims in this case which sorted such issues out.  But remember, an appeal is not the first trial again – it has to point to specific errors in the first trial.  That’s quite a hurdle.

But all that is just a prelude to the main show: what happens to the Mancs after that.   They could be fined but that would seem a bit silly since part of the argument is that they have abused their financial position.  Any findecould be paid with a wave of the oil reserves – as in “how many gallons of the stuff do you want?”  So if there is an appeal and it is lost, we can expect a real footballing not financial punishment.

Relegation?  Multiple relegations? Multiple fines.  Multiple humiliations.  And after all that, every club that did not get into the Champs League but might have done if ManC had not been there, would sue.  It would go on for years.  I’m not sure I’d be able to keep up.

And this is where the question of arrogance comes in.  In talking about ManC with friends and others who write about football, the one concept that comes up over and over again is the sheer arrogance of what ManC has done.  Lots of people, lots of companies, try and cheat, but in doing so they generally weigh up the costs, and potential benefits, against the negative publicity if they were to lose – and it is exactly this – the publicity if they lose the appeal that stops a lot of businesses in various areas of work, trying something on.

But the ManC affair was not just a one-off – the offences of which they have been found guilty went across seasons, and each season made it more and more likely that others would notice what they were up to.   And that is where the arrogance comes in: it was as if ManC were thinking, “no matter what stunt we try and pull, none of this lot would dare charge us with cheating.”

So why did they think that way?  Why did they think they could get away with it all, on such a huge scale?

Of course one can’t ever get inside the mind of a crook or a cheat, if one doesn’t cheat oneself, and one certainly can’t get in the mind of a cheat on this scale, but the risks in these cases are so massive, it is amazing that anyone would ever think they were worth taking.

Forever more – through the entire future of football – unless Manc and their backers manage to pull off something utterly amazing in the appeal hearing, (and having been through all the paperwork from top to bottom I can’t see how they could be realistically confident of that) ManC are going to be known as cheats.   At every match the opposition crowd will be chanting “cheat” through 90 minutes.  Players, if they have any sense, will be cautious about signing for ManC knowing that it is just possible that some other hidden ploy could bring their career to an abrupt halt.   Indeed even the plea from players that “I knew nothing about it” is looking pretty shaky in legal terms, in my opinion.

This scam has not just destroyed ManC’s reputation for this season, and re-written the league tables, they have been found guilty of offences from 2009 to 2023.  The club’s reputation is shredded and will remain that way, for years.

Reading everything in the case it looks to me, as a humble outsider, that what hurts the owners of ManC more than anything is indeed, the damage to their reputation.  Defeat at any level in this set of cases would be the ultimate humiliation for them and could only be answered by counter allegations of racial bias and a withdrawal from league.   And that is my guess as to where this goes.

It is of course a guess.  I am most certainly not involved in this case… I am just an onlooker who is amazed that ManC could be so stupid as to allow anything like this to happen.  And as a result one other issue rises in my mind.

Support ManC lose their appeal will the current owners have to listen to every crowd at every ground for every match chanting “CHEAT CHEAT CHEAT”  from the moment of the warm up to the final whistle?   Will they like that?  Will they attend games? I suspect not.

Anyway want to buy an embittered football club?

Apart from all the asterisks to be attached to a bucketful of domestic and other trophies, the points deductions, single or multiple relegations, fines, compensation cases and the big question over which managers and which players knew how much about the endless fiddling, one simple truth emerges out of the whole Fake Funding scheme:
the owners have comprehensively, unprecedentedly failed the ‘fit and proper’ management test, must not be allowed to continue to play any part in English football – and should probably also have to wind up the entire ‘City Group’ scam – and very good riddance.

The UAE is not renowned for havings a fantastic human rights record and is defined as undertaking, “systemic suppression of political dissent”. It’s leaders, which obviously include the vice president and owner of Man City, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan have, one would imagine, been used to getting their own way at every single stage of their life. Opposition would likely have been non-existent or merely swept aside. It’s not unreasonable to deduce that this “normality” is what instilled the arrogance to believe they could do anything they like without fear of retribution.

What also complicates this though is that, the Abu Dhabi United Group, has already made huge investments in Manchester and, according to Wiki, “signed a ten-year partnership with Manchester City Council to revamp the east end of the city……..creating the Manchester Life Development Company in conjunction with the council in order to build 6,000 affordable houses in the area.”

This is not the sort of investment, either Manchester or the Government would want to see just walk away. And the fact that the Sheikh owns the majority of voting rights in the Manchester Life Development Company whilst the City Council only owns a minority must be a huge worry for them. And whilst the council invested no money in the company they did hand over vast amounts of land. Further, an independent academic report concluded the council had, “sold the family silver far too cheap”. In fact, as reported by the BBC, the report found that prime, central land parcels were handed over via 999-year leaseholds for negligible up-front amounts—in some instances, for a nominal sum of just £1.

One would imagine that if that whole thing goes belly up it would be a huge embarrassment to all concerned. Hence, one can only speculate as to what political interest there might be in the outcome of the football case. Just for clarity though, it should be said that the current PM was not involved in setting up the Manchesr Life Development Company but I’m sure that wouldn’t stop the Mail, Express, Telegraph, Sun etc infering that there is a link in order to discredit him.

Sorry for all the political input but I think it is worth bearing in mind when one considers what pressure might be brought to bear in trying to get City off the hook.

Absolutely no need to apologise Mikey; really good to have your broader input and explanation.

Interesting point Ronan, and it leads me to think: how did they get this far while obviously failing the fit and proper person test.

These are the questions that are (as far as I have read today) not even being touched upon by the media. Somehow these people have passed the fit and proper test: how???????