Why Man City’s two-year ban hurts
Manchester City face upheaval after being banned from the Champions League for two years
FANS were stunned. A ban for cheating or doping or match-fixing – that they could understand. But a whole team being punished because of their club’s dodgy accounting practices? Surely that’s a bit extreme.
Yet this is exactly what’s happening to reigning Premier League champs Manchester City. Blues supporters were shocked when news broke recently that the powerhouse club has been banned from the Uefa Champions League, the most important tournament in professional club football, for two whole seasons – 2020/2021 and 2021/2022.
Uefa found the glamour club guilty of “serious breaches of financial fair play rules” and fined the Blues €30 million (R495m). City also faces the prospect of being stripped of their titles and docked precious Premier League points.
Experts are warning that if all of this happens, it could spark a mass exodus of star players and the setback to the club would be so devastating it might never recover.
WHY THE RULES EXIST
To ensure a level playing field, Uefa introduced its financial fair play (FFP) rules in 2011. These stipulate that over a threeyear period, clubs aren’t permitted to lose more than €30m.
At the time, with more than 50% of clubs losing money, it was felt the presence of wealthy owners with bottomless pockets had adversely affected the football market by forcing their rivals to overspend in order to keep up.
To combat this, the rules were put in place with the stipulation that handouts from owners couldn’t be taken into account when calculating a club’s income. After blowing £200m (then R3,4 billion) on transfers, Man City is now in the firing line.
In 2018, Italian giants AC Milan were banned for one season for breaching the rules.
HOW CITY BROKE THE RULES
The club stands accused of covering up payments made by its owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan, who’s a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family. Instead, the club presented these payments as legitimate sponsorships.
Uefa started its investigations in 2018 after internal Man City emails, leaked in German magazine Der Spiegel, suggested Mansour and his family had pumped millions in extra funding through Abu Dhabi state airline Etihad, which is City’s main sponsor. This was done to circumvent FFP rules.
The emails suggest that since 2008 around £60m (R1,1bn) of the club’s £67m (R1,27bn) sponsorship deal with the airline may have actually been paid by Mansour himself.
This isn’t the first time Man City has fallen foul of the FFP rules. In 2014 it was slapped with a €60m fine (then R840m) after it was found they’d made losses totalling approximately €180m (then about R2,6bn) in 2012 and 2013 following a player purchasing spree, vastly exceeding the FFP maximum deficit allowed.
But following the Der Spiegel exposé, Uefa has been taking an even closer look at City’s finances and has concluded that the information it was previously supplied by the club had a few serious gaps.
Now, the real issue isn’t only the club’s overspending but rather the dodgy practices it used to try to cover it up.
“The charge is essentially one of accounting fraud which is a form of theft,” soccer commentator Bobby McMahon says.
CONTROVERSIAL OWNER
With a fortune worth an estimated £16,7bn (R326bn), money really is no object for Mansour. And as the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, half-brother of its president, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, he also carries plenty of clout.
When he bought Manchester City in 2008 for a reported £210m (then R2,9bn), he inherited a club in disarray – it had finished ninth in the Premier League the season before and it had been 35 years since it had last won the coveted trophy.
But with Mansour bankrolling them, the club was able to attract star players, one of the world’s best managers, Pep Guardiola, and kick off a winning streak that has seen it bag 10 major trophies including four Premier League titles.
THE CLUB’S RESPONSE TO THE BAN
In a statement, City said they were “disappointed but not surprised” by Uefa’s decision. The club have painted themselves as the victim, insisting they did nothing wrong and that the sports body has a vendetta against them.
They now plan to appeal to the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland – which is often referred to as sport’s supreme court.
WHAT IT MEANS FOR PLAYERS
It seems unlikely that soccer players at the top of their game would agree to miss out on two years of top-table soccer. Sadly for City, some of their biggest stars – including Fernandinho, Leroy Sané, Sergio Agüero and Riyad Mahrez – will be out of contract and thus free to walk before the ban ends.
And if their manager leaves – as many expect him to do when his contract ends in 2021 – they’ll have even less of a reason to stay. There are already rumours that Guardiola is being courted by Italian outfit Juventus.
CAN THE CLUB SURVIVE THIS?
Experts predict that being out of the Champions League for two seasons could cost the club about £153m (R2,9bn).
With less earnings, it’s going to be very hard for the club to regroup and rebuild if players jump ship. Plus Uefa will be keeping a close eye on City to ensure all their sponsorships are legit and aren’t just cleverly disguised handouts from their owner.
The English Premier League has announced it’ll also investigate the club. The organisation has similar FFP rules and if City has transgressed them, the club could face further fines, a points deduction, be stripped of their titles or even be relegated.
If all this happens, it’d be extremely hard for the club to claw its way back.
WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY
Former Manchester United defender Gary Neville thinks the FFP rules are pointless and is confident Man City will get the ban overturned.
“If owners sign up to contracts or allow contracts to be signed, they should have money in place to fulfil those contracts and I think Man City’s owners have got that,” he says.
But other experts are sick of seeing City behaving as if the rules don’t apply to them. If underhanded accounting practices were used to get around the rules, they say, then the club deserve to pay.
“The reason why I was pleased is because I want to see football authorities have some teeth. I want to see the governance of the game mean something,” Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan says.
But former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher questions the timing of Uefa’s decision. It was announced just as City, through to the last 16 of the Champions League, were gearing up for their first clash against Real Madrid.
He says if Uefa wasn’t prepared to ban the club from the competition right now, it should’ve delayed the announcement until the end of the season.
“What would happen if City wins this season?” he asks. “Can you imagine people from Uefa having to give the cup to a Man City player? It would make a mockery of the competition.” SOURCES: GUARDIAN.CO.UK, BBC.CO.UK, THESUN.CO.UK
‘The charge is accounting fraud which is a form of theft’