By Tony Attwood
- Why a club making complaints about referees in public is probably not a good idea
- The 22 players Arsenal are already said to be signing.
As I am sure you are aware, the 130 or so cases brought against Manchester City FC are still outstanding. Dates have been whispered for when a conclusion might come, and they have all gone by without a word of conclusion being uttered.
But we can get an insight into what the ManC owners are thinking from the words of the chairman of the club. That person is a certain Khaldoon al-Mubarak, and he is being quoted as saying that the reason that ManC did not continue to dominate the league last season, slipping down to third, was that the club was not “aggressive enough” in the 2024 transfer windows. And his words suggest that the club will now return to its old ways of buying whoever it wants at whatever price it takes.
Which of course, implies most strongly, ignoring all rules and regulations about club spending. And given that ManC did buy four players in January, it suggests a lot of spending.
Indeed, just in case you don’t get the message, Khaldoon added, “We have clearly identified who exactly are the targets, in what positions, and we have our clear number one option, our clear number two option. And we’ll go about our business and it will be very clear, very swift. And our objective is to try to be ready with the new squad for the Club World Cup.”
Now as you may have noticed, there is not a word there about breaking Financial Fair Play Rules between 2009 and 2018.
It has long been my view that ManC have no intention of obeying the FFP regulations, since their entire club model is based on them not doing so, and it is interesting that of late, the club’s pronouncements have suggested that somehow such rules don’t apply to them. For when asked about the still pending proceedings, Khaldoon is quoted as saying, “This season is a season that’s now behind us. Today is a new day. We start working and preparing for next season. We will take all the good things and the not so good things from this season and learn from it and improve from it and get better. This club will do everything possible to come back to the standards that we know we all can and will achieve.”
Which is a bit convoluted but doesn’t really include anything that says, “And this time we will abide by the rules.”
Of course, what we also have to remember is that Manchester City are now themselves running legal cases against the Premier League (of which of course they are members) and have threatened to keep doing so until the League either goes bust or gives in.
And indeed it is true that in one case it was ruled that the Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules are unenforceable. The rest of the Premier League however, argued that this is not the case. Manchester City nonetheless have carried on and have since launched another case against the League. Meanwhile, the League says that the previous judgement has no impact on the rules in their current form. In particular, they argued that, “The tribunal’s decision has found that the three narrow aspects of the old APT rules, previously found to be unlawful, cannot be separated from the rest of the previous rules as a matter of law.” Meaning in fact that just because one fragment of a law is found to be unenforceable, that does not mean that the whole rule or law is unenforceable.
But, unmentioned by the media, is the fact that the rest of the Premier League – or at least the majority that don’t hold with ManC’s way of doing things, could do as they did with the old Football League and resign en masse, and then set up a new League which for the sake of a name we’ll call Super League.
As an entity in its own right Super League could have whatever rules it wants as long as they are within the bounds of the laws of the country in which the league is based, and those rules could well be rules that would stop the sort of funding ManC has. That would leave ManC outside the League, and it would perhaps try to form its own league.
Uefa would then have to decide if they wanted to recognise the ManC league or the reformed Premier League in terms of giving clubs European places. Likewise, the Football League, representing the Championship and Leagues One and Two, would also have to decide which organisation they wanted to link with for promotion and relegation.
And since the ManC league would only have clubs in it that were funded to astronomical levels by the oil states, I suspect the majority of clubs would wish to join the new non-oil based league.
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The break away from the Football League to form the Premier League was seen as a internal matter and not affecting European competitions.
A move by which a league was formed in order to exclude clubs funded by Middle East oil would be seen as a European and possibly a world matter and could cause a majour upheaval as how football competitions are organised.
Therefore I doubt very much we will see a new league formed which excluded the oil funded clubs.
The Man. Cty130 is destined to live long in the memory in much the same way as Jarndyce and Jarndyce, but with less cultural value.
I am realising more and more why I have fallen out with top level football.
It seems not only certain clubs but also the officials of the governing bodies completely disregard any rules in place.
This seasons UCL semi finals are just a small example of how UEFA completely ignore their own internal investigations into refereeing wrongdoing. I have seen reports that 3 of the 4 referee teams involved have been criticised for not following correct protocols for VAR.
Why should a rich club follow the rules if the governing bodies ignore wrongdoing. As you rightly point out all they do is set in motion more and more legal challenges – this makes the deduction of points for other clubs hypocritical and nonsensical.
Why don’t the governing bodies just have a “free for all” – oh sorry that is what they already have!