Daily Mail

City chief tells staff: We WILL prevail

- By MIKE KEEGAN

MANCHESTER CiTy have written to all their staff to declare of the club’s battle with UEfA: ‘We will prevail.’

Sportsmail has seen an email sent out by chief executive ferran Soriano following the announceme­nt last friday that City had been banned for two years from European competitio­n. The memo states that the Premier League champions ‘continue to reject’ the charges against them and adds that they will appeal to the Court of Arbitratio­n for Sport at the earliest opportunit­y. in a rallying cry, Soriano adds: ‘it is important to recognise that this is not the end. There is more to come. We are confident that with a fair and independen­t hearing we will prevail.’ Staff are also told not to post anything on social media. City have circled the wagons since UEfA’s announceme­nt and it can be disclosed that a number of meetings have already been held with staff at which they were reassured about the future and urged not to panic. The message that this is just the start of a process, together with confidence that City will ultimately succeed, has been the common theme. As well as their two-year European ban, City were fined £25million after a UEfA investigat­ion — triggered by the publishing of hacked documents — found they had committed ‘serious breaches’ of the governing body’s financial fair Play regulation­s. City face Real Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie a week tomorrow.

It is A myth that financial fair play was brought in to screw Manchester City. it was brought in to screw Chelsea. the fact that, by the time the rules got on UEFA’s statute books, Roman Abramovich was among FFP’s most enthusiast­ic supporters merely shows the degree to which it had been manipulate­d into a protection­ist charter.

it was too late to keep Chelsea out by then, but a greater threat had emerged to Abramovich’s financial supremacy in English football. And that was sheik Mansour and Manchester City.

so the very rules that the establishe­d elite hoped to use against Abramovich were then fully supported by Chelsea’s owner as a means to prevent another club eating at what was already quite a crowded top table.

Maybe, if they can ever claw their way back in, one day Ferran soriano, City’s chief executive officer, will be an advocate of financial controls that make it hard for the next arriviste. He has already been very proactive in demanding a greater cut for the Premier League elite, foolishly believing City were part of the club.

And everybody is very interested in FFP now. Everybody is outraged that its sacred rules have been broken. But when it all began, not so much. Heavens, it was a dry topic back then.

La Direction Nationale du Controle de Gestion. the financial regulation employed in French football by the DNCG, that helped deliver seven straight titles to Olympique Lyonnais between 2002 and 2008, was the forerunner of financial fair play. And you can only imagine the delight in the voice of any sports editor when their columnist announced he wanted to write about financial controls in Ligue 1 rather than Manchester United.

still, they’re a generous lot at The Times, and i’ve still got all of those pieces on my laptop. so i know that November 7, 2007, was the first time i used the word ‘protection­ist’ in connection with the wealthy clubs represente­d by the G14 group.

‘Yet for all these advantages, what bonds the G14 members is fear. Fear that they are not good enough to support their financial ambitions, fear that clubs from outside the group will usurp their position at the pinnacle of European football. They are, in essence, protection­ist.’

ACOLUMN on March 12, 2008, referred to the ‘cosy Champions League elite’ and another on June 8, 2008, detailed Michel Platini’s antipathy towards the investment in and success of English football. And then, on June 30, 2008, the first column opposing FFP when the phrase had not even been minted.

‘ Karl- Heinz Rummenigge, chairman of the executive board at Bayern Munich and head of the European Club Associatio­n, has come up with a progressiv­e idea. It is called the closed shop. “Football is sick,” says Rummenigge. “I read that 85 per cent of clubs are running at a loss.”

‘Rummenigge’s recommenda­tion is that wages should not exceed 55 per cent of turnover and he has the support of Michel Platini, UEFA president.

‘Convenient­ly, Rummenigge’s rule would not affect Munich, who have big support and are the most globally visible business in German football. It would not affect a club the size of Manchester United, either, who operate with wages substantia­lly less than half of their colossal turnover.

‘But Chelsea, or any team looking to break into that cosy elite with investment through a generous benefactor? There would be no way in. Chelsea’s wage bill is 70 per cent of turnover because the club is waiting to grow in size commercial­ly. Until then, its ambition is financed by its owner, Roman Abramovich.

‘This is every supporter’s dream: a rich man comes along and elevates your club. In time, if Chelsea are successful, the ledger will balance and the share of the turnover taken up by wages will decrease; and then there will be another presence in the already overcrowde­d elite.

‘That is what Rummenigge fears, really. He does not want to save football; he wants to save the establishm­ent from upstart interloper­s with a few quid. If he gets his way, there can be no surprises, no fairytales.

‘A Russian billionair­e could not invest in his local club in Moscow. In England, Chelsea would always be mid-table, and Manchester United and Arsenal would be the only clubs with access to the best players. All bar a privileged few would operate in shackles.

‘To dress this up as a moral crusade is the worst hypocrisy; it is protection­ism, nothing less.’

And what is significan­t about this is that Manchester City’s takeover did not occur until August 4, 2008, so 35 days later, without warning. there was no advance intelligen­ce of it, no rumours, no rumblings. Nobody had a clue. so the City supporters who believe there is a conspiracy against their club are wrong.

THE CONSPIRACY was against Chelsea, and City ended up caught in the crossfire. At the time when the elite of Europe began pressuring Platini to freeze football at a moment in time, Manchester City were not on their radar. But nobody cared about those machinatio­ns then.

Later, some would even buy into the idea that the shapers of FFP were concerned about clubs such as Portsmouth, but that isn’t true, either. Portsmouth’s financial crisis did not unfold until 2009, a year after Rummenigge proposed financial controls. this was about resisting competitio­n at the top of football’s pyramid, not helping the little guys.

You want to stop Portsmouth’s fall happening again? Ban director loans. the reason the club got into trouble was that its owner, Alexandre Gaydamak, financed significan­t investment through loans in order to cement Portsmouth’s place in the Premier League and challenge for honours.

then, when his personal circumstan­ces changed, he wanted that money back.

the club did not have it because it was the product of Gaydamak’s wealth, not theirs, and the collapse began. in 2010, it was reported that Gaydamak was demanding £32million. One would think that if preventing the next Portsmouth was a priority of FFP, loans by owners — not a gifted investment, which is entirely different, because there is no payback — would be outlawed, but no.

ipswich, for instance, owe in the region of £ 100million to their owner, Marcus Evans. ipswich are in the third tier. What would happen if he walked away and tried to get as much as possible of that back? FFP has done nothing to prevent another Portsmouth. it was never about that.

Nor was it about fairness. the scenario presented in the 2008 column about Rummenigge’s grand plan — that Chelsea’s finances would in time level out — is exactly what happened. No rich man wants to be taken for a mug.

All of them, from Abramovich to Jack Walker at Blackburn, even sheik Mansour, want their clubs to become self-financing after the

initial investment. Walker would not let Ray Harford buy a winger to replace Stuart Ripley, victim of a long-term injury.

CHElSEA HAVE always been a selling club under Abramovich, and have used an outstandin­g youth system as a revenue stream. Manchester City have pulled out of major deals lately — for Fred and Harry Maguire, for instance — because the price outstrippe­d their perceived value.

This isn’t down to FFP. It is that old cliche: speculate to accumulate. And when the speculatio­n reaps dividends, stop speculatin­g. liverpool spent huge money on a very good goalkeeper and centre half. They did not then continue spending at the same level, because the job was done.

Real financial fair play would address wealth distributi­on in the Champions league. To oppose FFP is not to support laissez-faire capitalism in which wealthy owners indulge in an investment arms race. It is to see this version of it as nothing more than a protection­ist racket, and wish UEFA had the strength to take on major clubs and domestic leagues that are increasing­ly uncompetit­ive.

When DNCG regulation helped lyon win seven titles, France had the second most uncompetit­ive league in Europe, after Moldova. Now, such runs are the norm. Juventus are closing in on a ninth straight title, Bayern Munich could win their eighth, Paris Saint-Germain their seventh in eight, Benfica will have won six in seven if they can hold off Porto.

Further afield, BATE Borisov won 13 consecutiv­e titles in Belarus, Olympiacos 19 in 21 in Greece, ludogorets Razgrad eight on the turn in Bulgaria. Why? Champions league money, mainly, making a handful of clubs — or just one in some of the smaller countries — disproport­ionately wealthy.

In the 2018-19 European season, UEFA expected £189.4million to be distribute­d as a solidarity payment across all the leagues in Europe, which sounds a lot, until it is considered that £2.08billion is the sum reserved for clubs competing in the Champions league, UEFA Super Cup and Europa league.

liverpool’s revenue for winning the Champions league was roughly half the entire solidarity payment for the rest of Europe. This is fair play, apparently.

Now think what might happen if the majority of prize money went to leagues, not clubs, and was distribute­d evenly. The competing UEFA clubs would still get a significan­t share, but not so much that, like ludogorets Razgrad, they become unassailab­le — already seven points clear after 21 games this season.

In England, we know the impact of the new television deal on the traditiona­l also-rans. leicester have won the title and are on course to reach the Champions league again. Wolves are thriving domestical­ly and in the Europa league. Sheffield United are in contention for a European place, too.

This is healthy. Other domestic leagues do not have the Premier league’s advantages in the overseas markets, but UEFA could help compensate for that. Instead, they work with protection­ists and cosy cartels, terrified they might carry out threats to break away.

THERE are 55 full members of UEFA and if the solidarity payments were divided equally, they would amount to £3.4million each. Divide that between, say, 18 clubs, and it amounts to £ 191,524. Versus £91.6million for liverpool. Sounds fair.

Still, there has been a lot of revisionis­m around the morality and competence of UEFA these last few days. Earlier this season, it would have been possible to think of it as the gruesome organisati­on that cared more for minuscule infringeme­nts of protocol around sponsorshi­ps and procedure than it did for instances of racism.

Now we are to understand that not since the Apostles has there been a nobler band of men. Among them are some of the finest legal minds available, beyond question or reproach, even when forgetting their own rules and deadlines, the silly scatterbra­ins, which is how Paris Saint-Germain escaped investigat­ion.

UEFA closed their case against PSG, then reopened it two months later, only to be informed that the limit on such an action is 10 days. Nothing to see here, obviously.

Jean-luc Dehaene is another who, like an injured player, is remembered more fondly in his absence.

Every mention of the man who oversaw and helped shape the rules of FFP discusses his brilliance statesmans­hip. There is, of course, another view. Here’s an extract from an interview in 2013.

Samuel: One of the people you have got in charge of financial fair play is Jean-Luc Dehaene. He was in charge of a bank that needed to be bailed out for £5.18bn. Not Euros, pounds. How can he be in charge of financial fair play? He was meant to come here to speak and the bank went skint on that day and he had to cancel. How can he be telling a football club, this is how you run your football club? Platini: What do you want I answer? Samuel: Just an answer. How? Platini: OK. I miss a penalty one day and I score a goal the day after.

Samuel: It’s a bit bigger than that, Michel, come on.

Platini: OK, it’s not an answer. But he is at the beginning of the procedure, he has a contract for some years and we will see at the end of his contract what we can do. But he is from the beginning, let us finish the procedure and then we will see what’s happened. But he was Prime Minister of Belgium with big success. OK, he lost one goal, he is not a bad player because he lost one goal. Samuel: His bank lost £9.73bn. Platini: OK, two goals.

In fact, Dexia Holdings, on February 23, 2012, nearly took Europe’s entire monetary system down. The Euro would have collapsed without the bail out.

When Dehaene died in 2014, a lawyer at Manchester City made a crass joke. Yet this, and the reinventio­n of the saintly UEFA, is being allowed to shroud the reality: flawed men and flawed systems designed not for purpose but to protect.

Whatever Manchester City have done wrong, never forget that the entire playing field was shaped by the elite of European football for their own gain. This monstrous reimaginin­g of fairness has been obvious since 2007. So it was never about Manchester City. Whatever you think of them, the game as it has now been framed by UEFA and a privileged elite, is bent.

 ??  ?? Level playing field? Manchester City are paying the price for UEFA protection­ism
Level playing field? Manchester City are paying the price for UEFA protection­ism
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GETTY IMAGES

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