Rumble rumble …
Good morning everyone.
The Man City stuff will rumble on and on, such is the way with a case of epic proportions like this. We have heard from the UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, who said of the owners of the club whose position is completely at odds with any continuation in the Premier League, “I would be really concerned to lose them.”
He then also reportedly said it would wrong of him to interfere in whatever disciplinary processes the Premier League are going to undertake. This, of course, is how sports-washing works. They have invested a lot of money in Manchester, beyond the football club that cheated its way to success, but that’s the entire point. You buy influence so when something like this happens you are insulated from the consequences.
A few phone calls are made. “Nice city you have there, would be a shame if something happened to it.”
It’s a kind of reverse protection racket, but by enmeshing yourself in a community by spending vasts amount of money, you can leverage political favour as and when its required. I place little faith in most politicians these days, we’ve crossed the Rubicon of honesty and public service in so many ways, so we’ll have to wait and see. Burnham is an Everton fan though, a club which has actually been penalised by the Premier League in terms of a points deduction, a fine and required to pay compensation to another club because of one breach of the profit and sustainability rules.
You would like to think that when another club is guilty of 114 charges, he might stand aside, but I am sure behind the scenes the machinations from City’s owners are well and truly underway. Power. Money, endless money. And influence. Nevertheless, as I said yesterday, there is nothing in the Premier League’s statement that provides much in the way of wiggle room for them.
Then we have the absurd story about how Etihad, Man City’s main sponsor, are threatening legal action because they were not consulted at any point in the investigation. Which is a bit mad because it’s the state airline of Abu Dhabi and the City Group is owned primarily by Sheikh Mansour, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family. Better make sure they send those legal letters on the correct headed paper, I guess.
As with any kind of story like this, there will be twists and turns. There are sections of the media, and individuals within that, who have been very kind to Man City down the years, and will probably continue to be that way despite the Mount Everest of evidence in the findings. Such is life, but I think we can all recognise attempts to downplay the absolute seriousness of what has happened and treat those sources accordingly.
Meanwhile, Pep Guardiola released a statement of support for the owners, the club, and the fans, which I guess he can do now from his retirement villa without ever facing the spotlight in the way he would have done if he was still there. In 2022, he said of the charges and his conversation with the ownership:
“I said to them: ‘If you lie to me, the day after I am not here. I will be out and I will not be your friend any more. I put my faith in you because I believe you 100% from day one and I defend the club because of that.’”
Do we take it that he simply hasn’t read the Premier League statement or any of the findings? He’s not an unintelligent man, so how do we reckon with what he said in 2026 versus 2022. Maybe they didn’t lie to him back then. Maybe they told him the truth and he was ok with it.
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to recognise that as a coach and manager he was one of the best, if not the best, in the world. Hence he was hired by the richest club in England, and there’s no question much of the success Man City had was down to his talent. However, if your teams have been built in a way which contravenes the rules, you’ve had an unfair advantage.
At Barcelona, the cheat code was a singularly brilliant Argentinian called Lionel Messi. At Man City it was the way City cooked the books to give the club the wealth to bring in players they, ordinarily, would not have been able to afford. As brilliant as Guardiola is as a manager, he was given tools superior – either in quality or quantity (perhaps both) – to those of every other manager in the Premier League, and it was, whether he cares to admit it or not, foundational to his and Man City’s success.
Asterisk. Asterisk. Asterisk. 114 asterisks.
Anyway, there’s more to come on this in an Arsecast later today in which I’ll be chatting to Philippe Auclair, so stand by for that. For some extra reading this morning, Tim’s column this week touches on how we come to terms with how City’s cheating impacted the game and even the legacy of Arsene Wenger, while Lewis has an excellent post on his newsletter about the whole thing.
And for something non-football related to listen to ahead of today’s Arsecast, we have an episode of Waffle over on Patreon, the podcast in which me and James talk about anything and everything except Arsenal.
Final note, the Arseblog app updates continue apace with all kinds of new features, including heatmaps and individual stats on the matchday page (which you can share to socials etc), and we’re working on comments and Arses integration too. There’s also a button in ‘settings’ which allows you to report a bug directly to the developers, so please use that if you notice something. And if you like the new version, please rate/review in the respective app store as it really helps visibility for the apps, thanks!
iOS – https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/arseblog/id369606006
Android – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.milkbarstudios.arseblog
Right, that’s it for now. Have a good one.
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