UEFA once again proves it is unfit for purpose

YOU could see why Jose Mourinho vented his anger at Manchester City’s two-year European ban being overturned.

It’s a distraction from his current mediocre position and it meant one less Champions League slot to play for next season.

Jurgen Klopp’s reaction had logic too. With Pep Guardiola’s side out of Europe, they would, as he claimed, have steamrollered all opposition and reclaimed their league title.

He was also right to argue it was not a good day for football. How can it be when the people who run the European branch of it once again showcased their timidity and incompetence?

The noises coming out of Nyon throughout this inquiry into City’s sponsorship arrangements were that they had the Sheikh’s moneymen bang to rights.

But, typically, they didn’t, and the legal system laughed in their face. Just as the racists do when UEFA talk tough after every obscene incident in their jurisdiction, then hand out a paltry fine for fear of upsetting powerful figures in national FAS, who allow them to dwell in their cushy Swiss haven.

This inability to interpret their own rules on financial doping, or even understand time limits, is another example of how UEFA is unfit for purpose. With the world’s economy going off the cliff, this legal battle between the most expensive lawyers an oil-rich state could hire and an organisation dancing to the tune of elite clubs who want to get even richer, felt pretty obscene.

Like watching a divorce trial between an ageing property mogul and his beautiful, but shark-like, younger wife suing him for half of his 20 billion because she needs to be kept in the lifestyle he afforded her.

Even those who are angered by City’s new-found wealth must admit this latest humiliation for UEFA couldn’t happen to a nicer shower of shysters.

Financial Fair Play is a noble idea initiated for the wrong reasons, and impossible to make work in a modern-day, trillion-dollar industry. It was a move by a handful of globally-supported clubs to ringfence their guaranteed income and prevent the nouveau riche gatecrashing their closed shop.

A project which refused to ask how the likes of Real Madrid could trouser the world’s most expensive players while being hundreds of millions of pounds in debt, introduced by then UEFA president Michel Platini who was later banned from football over ethics violations.

Even the credibility of the Champions League UEFA wanted to ban City from was compromised years ago to keep the established giants happy by allowing four teams from the most powerful countries to enter it, rather than just the champions.

And they now want to make it even more anti-competitive by guaranteeing the old order a place in it every year at the expense of any club that has a successful season.

There are plenty who still believe that, despite the ban being overturned, City’s books are far from squeaky clean. But, if so, are they alone?

Would it have been more moral for Manchester United, a club permanently in debt due to the hedge-fund monsters who run it, taking their Champions League place?

How about Chelsea, bought by a Russian oligarch made wealthy due to questionable activities in the break-up of the old Soviet Union, who splurged his way to European football’s top table? Maybe one of the initial beneficiaries, Mourinho, would like to ask himself that when his current anger subsides.

UEFA’S failure to win this case against Abu Dhabi has ensured that more states, or oligarchs, will buy football clubs to sports-wash dubious reputations.

And, if they’re honest, most fans will hope that club is theirs because they’ve been told it’s the only way to have sustained success at the top of the modern game.

Mainly due to the fact that the people who run it are only in it for wealth and power themselves, and have no intention of losing either.