IAN WRIGHT

raised a few eyebrows on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football with his comments about Manchester City and the 115 charges hanging over them. I have never lacked any compunction in referencing it and neither have Oliver Holt and Ian Herbert in these pages.

But it is unusual for the issue to be raised on Sky. Wright was probably right in what he said about there being an elephant in the room, even if I suspect his chief motivation is because he is an Arsenal fan and they are directly competing with City this season. Sky are so closely tied to the Premier League that it is not a subject they want to dwell on.

The fact is the Premier League have put themselves in a slightly invidious position by taking this challenge on. If they hadn’t done so, people would not question the integrity of the Premier League but by doing so, they know that they will diminish their own product if City are found guilty. The problem for the Premier League is that they appear to be running City’s arguments for them. They’ve allowed themselves to disappear down a rabbit hole by arguing about the fair market value of sponsorship deals. That is an argument City want to have, they like to debate the value of their commercial endorsements. But that has never been the argument. The argument is, and has always been, have City received equity funding from commercial partners? The fact they were initially found guilty of that by UEFA — before CAS overturned it for being time-barred — allows you to draw your own conclusions.