By Tony Attwood
There is an interesting comment of a type I’ve not seen before, being made in the ManC case (a case in which I thought everything that might be said, had already been said). It is that some clubs are now becoming very angry that ManC have still not admitted ANY wrongdoing at all and are hence pushing for ever higher punishments for the club for dragging the case out.
The view is that ManC should have admitted their guilt – so overwhelming is the case against them – rather than apparently enter into the previously threatened approach of dragging the case on and with appeal after appeal , seemingly hoping the rest of the league will get worried about the amount of money it is having to spend on the case.
However if anything the League seems to have become more resolute as time has gone by and remains utterly determined to fight each and every appeal. And of course there is a problem here for the Mancs since the more they obfuscate, the more the potential punishments increase if they lost their appeals.
As a result it has now been stated that the football regulator has ‘absolute power’ to force Manchester City sale if the verdicts are upheld. This is all as a result of them citing fake commercial deals to inflate some income, reduce other costs, and working to “stop and frustrate” the League’s own investigation; all according to a Guardian report. They have also said they would not discuss outcomes further while the appeal was ongoing.
The regulator also said he would resign if there was any “political interference” in his investigation by either the UK or the UAE. The case is being run by the Financial Reporting Council which is deciding if there should now be a “formal investigation” into all the Manc affairs..
The Guardian’ reports today that the PL’s chief executive, Richard Masters, called the case “the most significant in Premier League history”. It seems inevitable it will lead to an unprecedented punishment, including in all probability a points deduction that will condemn City to relegation.”
This notion, however, has been on the table for some time, and a number of commentators (including of course ourselves) have noted that a points deduction which simply takes the Mancs down to the Championship would be far too light a punishment since it would mean they could get themselves back into the Premier League and resume their old ways within a year. This is particularly worrying since they have constantly admitted no guilt, and thus the implication is that they could immediately return to what they were doing before, and use those approaches to win more titles at the expense of other clubs using legitimate financial means.
Indeed to quote further from the newspaper, among other things, “City were found to have operated a “disguised funding scheme” worth £830.6m over nine seasons, from 2009-10 to 2017-18, and to have hidden costs by a further £70m. In addition the club have been found guilty of multiple breaches of failing to cooperate with the Premier League and act in good faith. The commission concluded the club had made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the investigation.”
And we also now know that the club falsified its operating expenditure to further mislead the regulators.
However it is clear that some of the media have already had more than enough of this case and either are dropping their regular reporting of its evolution because they think readers have had enough, or because they have come under pressure from sources within football to lay off further comment. Certainly it is hard to explain why the Telegraph is running, as its main story the headline “What is really going on with Arsenal behind the scenes. Telegraph Sport understands there will be more departures than the 60 jobs already at risk and morale within the club is low.”
As you will know if you are a regular reader of Untold, only Newcastle, Villa, Bournemouth, Liverpool, Palace and Ipswich made a profit in their last accounts while Arsenal have made a loss through every one of the seasons under the current ownership and management. Arsenal’s loss in the last accounts was £1.38m, and the owners declared there were only two ways of resolving this while challenging for trophies. One was to expand the size of the ground, and the other to cut staff. Arteta argued that to stay at the top of the league he needed expenditure on players to stay at its current levels which left raising entry costs or cutting staff. The supporters groups argued strongly against raising prices, and the players argued against the disruption that enlarging the Clock End would bring, so there was only one solution left, some jobs will go.
However as we know Arsenal’s loss was £1.38m compared with Manchester City’s loss of £9.92 million And we might perhaps also note that despite winning the Europa League in the year in question Tottenham loss was £120.6 million.
I have been made redundant in my working life and I know what it feels like, but there is a payout and a no opprobrium associated with the event. If it brings Arsenal into profit, and the alternative was to hold back player salaries and thus risk losing some players, I’d say all well and good.
Lets see if say another dodgy Thai owner comes in for City again.