Declan Rice on frustration and how referees are influenced by journalists.
By Tony Attwood
And so after that wonderful run of fourteen games undefeated, we have had four defeats, one win and one draw in our four competitions, taking us to the semi-finals of the Champions League, but in peril psychologically. And in difficulty in terms of points at the top of the Premier League.
Meanwhile, with no action appearing to be forthcoming on the 100+ guilty verdicts that ManC faces, the independent commission investigating them met between September and December 2024, and nothing has happened since, as far as we know. The best we can now hope for is that, in order not to prejudice Manchester City’s football results this season, it was agreed that their punishment will be withheld until the summer. It seems a fairly weak argument to me, but it is the only one being put forward.
That they are severely punished in the summer is the best-case scenario. The worst case is that they suffer no punishment at all, and the guilty charges against ManC are never dealt with. Increasingly, with the silence of the media, that looks like the most likely outcome.
There was one bright ray of sanity recently, however, when on 26 February 2026 the BBC published an article which had the opening lines, “The handling of the 115 charges Manchester City are facing for alleged Premier League financial rule breaches has been ‘damaging’ for the competition, says La Liga president Javier Tebas.”
This raises a point that we have not considered, which is how clubs and authorities outside of England are considering the way the charges that were levelled in February 2023, are still “hanging in the air more than three years later” as there has been “no publicly announced outcome.”
It was argued at the time that it took the independent commission until September 2024, even to get started, but it did get started, and yet even now has not handed out its conclusion. That article from which I quoted above said, “No announcement has been made on when a decision will be reached, though it was widely expected to be in the first quarter of 2025.” Five quarters later, and we are still in the dark.
Speaking at the Financial Times Business of Football Summit in London, Tebas said the fact that there had been no verdict created “uncertainty” around the application of rules.
“It’s not just the delay, it’s the general situation,” he added. “When a great institution like the Premier League, when you have to have rules for financial fair play, you need to have a lot of legal certainty in the competition and among clubs.
“Citizens have to think that the system is fair to all, that it’s not arbitrary, that it’s objective. When you have this type of situation, you’re generating uncertainty, and that’s damaging for an institution’s image.”
Speaking about the case at the same event, Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said he “can’t talk about the timing of it… Having spent three years not commenting, I’m not going to start now. Stepping aside from that, any regulator wants its judicial system to be efficient and work swiftly. That’s about as far as I can go.”
So we are getting no statements, although Javier Tebas, president of the association responsible for administering Spain’s top two leagues, said “the fact there had been no verdict created “uncertainty” around the application of rules.
He went on, “It’s not just the delay, it’s the general situation. With a great institution like the Premier League, you have to have rules for financial fair play, you need to have a lot of legal certainty in the competition and among clubs.
“Citizens have to think that the system is fair to all, that it’s not arbitrary, that it’s objective. When you have this type of situation, you’re generating uncertainty, and that’s damaging for an institution’s image.”
“Stepping aside from that, any regulator wants its judicial system to be efficient and work swiftly. That’s about as far as I can go.”
And yet, and yet, not only do we drift on without a resolution, the damage to the reputatoin of the Premier League grows day by day across the whole football world Of course in England we like to believe this is the greatest league in the world and that everyone wants to see it, but it appears that with constant media criticism of the ManC case by European media, but no mention of it in England, that reputation is sinking very fast.
There is no point the British media endlessly telling us the Premier League is the greatest league in the world. The rest of the world doesn’t believe it any more.
Does you good to know that Cheatsea74 recently received a fine , which, if that was literally money dropping from a Saudi hand, its extremely unlikely that the owner of said hand would even stoop to pick it up, come to that I don’t think they would even notice.