By Tony Attwood
Interesting things are now happening around the ManC case, and not necessarily the ones that people in the football business expected. For the ManC finance case has challenged English football in a way that it has never been challenged before, and there are a lot of people who really don’t know what to do about it.
Basically, two questions remain: one is why has this been allowed to drag on for so long, and the other is, what happens as and when a result of the case is announced?
Why has the case dragged on for so long?
In most legal cases, whether you are the accused or the accuser, you know fairly quickly who and what you are up against. Break the speed limit in the UK and if you challenge the issue you are heard in the county court where the police put their evidence, you answer it, and the district judge decides a verdict. If guilty, you are usually told what punishment you get there and then
But in the ManC case there is no such certainty. For in this case we are back to “Are these rules valid?” and are they “reasonable” and “should apply to this club in this case?” and so on. Which is why if it ever starts, this case could run for years, although I stress again I have no legal training in such areas.
As a result, if the League lost and were ordered to pay ManCs legal costs, that could be the end of the league. (Of course I speculate here, and I am not a lawyer; these are just my thoughts and opinions). So I am guessing that the League itself might actually not want to take the risk of running this case, which might go on for months and months. Or years if there are appeals.
When this sort of case arises, what can happen is that while to the public gaze it appears the case is stagnating, in effect the “behind closed doors” discussions are rolling on. Such discussions are invariably held “without prejudice,” meaning that any offer of a settlement made is made simply to try and get the matter resolved. Offering a settlement doesn’t mean admitting guilt. It just means trying to bring it all to a close.
But if it is possible to reach an agreement that brings the case to a halt, in which the details of the agreement are never made public, we merely guess that agreement is there, because nothing else happens.
One such agreement might be (and I must be very clear here that this is pure speculation) that the club and the authorities agree that nothing more will happen and nothing more will be said at any time now or in the future, provided that from this point on, both parties agree that the rules mean x, y and z.
But the problem then arises: what happens if another club goes down the route it is alleged ManC have gone down financially? I guess the League will probably have already changed its rule book to stop this sort of thing cropping up again, at least I hope so. But we can’t be sure.
Of course, all this leaves a problem because ManC won the league in 2012, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. Had ManC not won the league in those seasons when they were happily using what might be now seen as contested money, then Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal would have been picking up some more Premier League titles.
Now when we get into an argument like this, we can see the problem. Suggesting that in those eight years ManC were financially cheating and should not have won the league would be a huge pill for ManC to swallow, and that in itself could be a stumbling block. And we should be clear about this – it is not as if ManC is being accused of some heinous crime, but they are still having those eight titles removed and given them to Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpoo.
And this is where it gets very sticky. The club agreeing not to use money done it has received as it has before is one thing, but reassigning its league titles to other teams would be another. I can’t see that happening – but as throughout this little piece, that is a personal opinion.
And so we hit the problem. If, just for a moment, we assume that ManC have been guilty of a spot of playing fast and loose with the regulations (and of course we have no proof of that) the implication of them admitting such a thing would be huge.
Of course there is nothing to stop the clubs that would have won the league title in the years of ManC financial skullduggery counting those totals as their own: three to Arsenal, three to Liverpool, and three to ManU. Maybe we would end up with two sets of lists of who won the league in those season. Maybe we could have TWDF – Titles won with dubious finances. Although what is dubious is just a matter of opinion, as is so much in football these days.
