Blues can now stand on their own two feet
THE last 18 months have been agony and ecstasy for City fans, the bitterest of times and the sweetest of times.
The football played by Pep Guardiola’s team has been unparalleled in the Blues’ history and the fact that it was also winning football – with a Premier League title, FA Cup and two League Cups gathered safely in – is a huge bonus.
But the success and beauty on the field was overshadowed at times by the storm clouds gathering over the club due to the Football Leaks allegations about breaches of the financial fair play (FFP) rules, and the Uefa investigation and ban which they sparked.
And even after that increasingly hefty burden was lifted by City’s triumph when the matter was laid before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), still the matter refused to go away.
The Premier League has kept quiet about its own FFP investigation, although it would seem to be unfeasible that they will see it through, given that the independent court ruled that the same evidence available to them was not sufficient evidence to justify Uefa’s case.
But the fact that the Premier
League is not commenting might indicate that they have learned the lesson from Uefa’s leaky investigation which earned them a reprimand from CAS for prejudicing their own process.
Nothing has leaked from the PL investigation and that means we have no idea whether they will continue to look at City, regardless of the CAS decision.
The club’s entrenched critics have certainly not given up. The fact that they have, perversely, seized on the Blues’ guilt in the lesser charge of refusing to cooperate, tells us that.
And sure enough, just a few days after CAS revealed the details of the case, and made their reasoning plain, Der Spiegel – the German newspaper which first published the six hacked emails which formed the basis of the Uefa case – came up with another handful of emails.
It looked like more of the same. Emails which, when presented in a certain framework, look damning but which, when placed in a different context, prove nothing.
But these new, old leaks had City fans again holding their heads in their hands, wondering if the assault on their club would ever stop.
And there is also the fear that those within Uefa who drove the investigation, under pressure from some powerful forces in European football, would not take it lying down. Could they go after City again, by moving the FFP goalposts? Will they take a different tack by way of revenge? The initial signs are encouraging for City, who have maintained all along that they do not blame Uefa as a body, which implies that they feel there has been an agenda against them from factions within.
There is a feeling that they feel the ‘clear and organised attempt’ to damage their reputation – a claim to which City have stuck throughout this tawdry episode – had tendrils within Uefa as well as in Football Leaks, although City have never shone a light on that claim.
Stuart Brennan
The club’s entrenched critics have certainly not given up
Whoever drove the investigation, the fact is they are smarting from a pretty complete defeat.
And there are forces within Uefa who want to put it behind them and move forward. It makes sense for the governing body to now stop banging heads with City, accept them more fully into the fold as one of the clubs which enhance the Champions League’s attractiveness rather than rule-breaking rowdies who are spoiling the party.
One big advantage for City is that current Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, who took office in 2016, has already responded to olive branches extended by City chief executive Ferran Soriano.
Ceferin distanced himself from the initial Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) investigation, saying he did not know much about it, and putting faith in the legal process.
Soriano picked up the phone hours after CAS had delivered the verdict and is understood to have received a positive response.
Over and above all that, there have been no allegations of any wrongdoing by City in the last four years.
The club has made rapid progress in their bid to become a financial power off the field as well as a football power on it.
The recent publication of the game’s most valuable brands shows that only Real Madrid, Barcelona, United and Liverpool rank higher than City.
And the fact that the Blues now work to a strict budget, in contrast to the cash-happy early days, is evidenced by the way they walked away from deals for Virgil Van Dijk, Harry Maguire, Riyad Mahrez and Alexis Sanchez when they exceeded their own valuations.
City were caught on the hop by FFP six years ago, just as they were ramping up their investment in all aspects of the club hence the fact they were sanctioned for failing to comply in 2014.
But these days they are where they always aimed to be, able to stand on their own two feet and slug it out with the traditional big guns – both on the field and off it.