- ManC v Arsenal: The referee and his percentage of home wins, and the sadness of losing a player
- Declan Rice on frustration and how referees are influenced by journalists’ reports
By Tony Attwood
But what on earth will the media do if Arsenal do actually win the league? Well, that is easy, because we will be back to the unproven and basically spineless commentaries about how Arsenal have cheated their way to the top through cheating, while there will not be a word about the 110 charges against ManC. In short, the media is building up to the point that ManC were the real winners irrespective of the result
And this raises the point: supposing one way or another ManC do win the league, what then of the 110+ accusations against them? We are seeing suggestions now made that ManC could be fined – something that would be lacking in all meaning since the club can call on as much money as it likes, remembering that its recent threats involved bankrupting the entire Premier League in legal fees if they were found guilty of anything.
The fact is that ManC will have played 38 league games this season, and a further 38 games last season, using players whose transfers and/or salaries have been paid for through illegal income into the clubs. Therefore, as an absolute minimum, all the points from this and last season should be removed, which would take them down to League One for the next campaign. And that is a punishment that seems awfully weak compared to the magnitude not just of their original offences of which they have been found guilty, but their subsequent threats.
And there is another point here. ManC, of course, can’t be found guilty for the recent crimes of Chelsea, but the revelations now unfolding in relation to the way Chelsea’s finances of late make utterly shocking reading. And it cvan be argued that Chelsea wouldn’t have gone down their recent route had ManC showed how easy it was to get away with deviant accounting.
Thus, herein lies a problem, because if ManC are not fully punished for the rule breaches they have been found guilty of, that means Chelsea will probably get away with their recent financial restructuring as well. And if those clubs get away with it, what next? There will of course be accusations made against Arsenal, but they will inevitably be without any sort of factual detail that we have had revealed against Chelsea and ManC.
Chelsea do seem to have been very clever in getting themselves off the newspapers totally, by having a financial structure so complex you virtually need a doctorate in company finance to follow it.
So the question is, where on earth does football go now? Are ManC really going to be allowed to get away with 110 or so transgressions without meaningful punishment? And if so, what will Everton, Nottingham Forest, and Derby County have to say concerning their punishments? Derby had 21 points removed in 2021/22 for transgressions far, far smaller than Chelsea’s. Will they just be swatted aside when they complain about Chelsea having been found guilty of many, many more breaches?
Or worse, will we get to the start of next season with the matter unresolved and ManC just powering ahead once again, secure in the knowledge that they can get away with anything?#
There are many articles available about Chelsea’s extraordinary escape plan to get them out of the largest debts football has ever seen, and if you want the most fulsome details, there are in the Athletic’s analysis. But if that is too much, try the Financial Times review – it doesn’t give the full detail of the chaos but it’s a start. And all the while the League sits and watches both Chelsea and ManC, seemingly doing nothing.
Jamie Carragher has an article in the Telegraph recently (hidden behind a subscription requirement) which leads with the headline, “Finishing second is a failure – Arsenal would be the most criticised runners-up in history.”
However, I suspect history will show us that the League would be the most criticised professional football body in history for allowing this season to take place without any comment about Manchester City’s guilty verdicts – crimes against football that have still not been punished.
And indeed, we can all see just how clever the City ploy has been, leaving their suggestion that legal action might follow against the league and others, if any mention is made of the allegations against them (and the subsequent guilty verdicts), leaving the media commenting only on the potential failure of Arsenal. And no comment is being made about the failure to keep ahead of a club that has single-handedly broken more League rules than the rest of the League put together.
But that is something of a misleading title because if Arsenal won the league, they would do so as the most criticised league winners in history. Indeed, we would be told that Arsenal had devalued the competition and that TV companies around the world are either cancelling their contracts to show Premier League matches or demanding refunds, because of Arsenal.
And just as now, assuming the run of results remains much the same as recently, we would NOT be told of other achievements. The ones we often mention but other people don’t: fewest defeats, best defence, best goal difference, second best attack.
And above all, beating a club found guilty of over 100 crimes against the League’s rules.
Indeed there was an article in one of the papers yesterday about how Liverpool are preparing to win the league next season, while offering not a word about how this seaon Liverpool have won six fewer games and lost six more than Arsenal, have scored 10 goals fewer than Arsenal conceded 18 more goals than Arsenal, have a goal difference only fractionally above a quarter of Arsenal’s and 18 points fewer than Arsenal. No, not a word about any of that, and not a word about ManCs 110+ crimes.
In fact, what we can tell is that the actual figures which determine who comes where in the league means far less than it used to because of the ManC cheating, while journalistic bias counts for all.