City’s Prem club rivals have shown their true colours

CITY have been marooned by UEFA, banned from playing in European competition for two years. The club have appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and pledged their innocence, but in the five weeks since the verdict dropped, City’s reputation has taken a battering as they have been left alone out in the open for anyone to take a shot at.

Rival bosses including Jurgen Klopp and Mikel Arteta have reached out to offer their sympathy for the playing staff, but there hasn’t needed to be any condemnation from rival clubs – in part because a two-year exile from the Champions League is damning enough but also because, as Pep Guardiola reminded his former club Barcelona: “Don’t talk too loud, because everybody is sometimes involved in these situations.”

And yet a number of clubs couldn’t help themselves.

The Mail broke the news, not denied by any of those mentioned, that eight of the top ten in the Premier League have made an application to CAS to try to ensure that City are not allowed to freeze their appeal before their hearing is heard, with the coronavirus problems possibly delaying the case.

Legally, as reported in yesterday’s M.E.N. Sport, it will make little difference.

And if the gesture is more symbolic, it would struggle to be timed more badly.

“Here you have almost half of the Premier League collectively,” explained Jack Anderson, professor of sports law at the University of Melbourne, “and it’s not just something that is spontaneous, they would have had to sit down and think about this, writing to the court in question and saying ‘Listen, as an interested party and the parties who domestically have to deal with Manchester City – our champions by the way – we think that you shouldn’t consider a stay[ed punishment].”

Some of the clubs in questions have responded excellently to the problems caused to their communities during the pandemic, but this doesn’t look good.

At a time when Pep Guardiola has donated 1m euro to help and City have committed to financial support for around 1,000 casual workers does not seem like the best moment to try and paint them as the baddies.

The Blues have largely kept their silence throughout, with just one interview with in-house media from Ferran Soriano accompanying the official statements that have been made.

With this application to CAS, their rivals have helped to remind everyone that the top clubs are interested in what it means for them rather than any grand ideas about the good of football.

With such enemies, who needs friends?