NOBODY LAUGHING NOW AS CITY BECOME ‘BIGGEST AND BEST’

IT WAS nine years ago when Garry Cook, the former Manchester City chief executive, popped into the home of the club’s New York supporters branch for a pint. ‘The biggest and best football club in the world,’ he predicted. And the world laughed its head off. That Cook was speaking from the Mad Hatter Saloon merely added to the merriment. City’s New York contingent now drink at a new and bigger location — Amity Hall. And beyond its environs, nobody’s laughing. Certainly not the rivals who saw Manchester City as bumptious parvenus, and Cook’s boasts as the words of a fool. Cook is long gone but he knew what City were about from the start. He knew who he worked for and he knew the ambition and resources behind the club. And while the competition underestimated City, Cook did not. The club’s increasingly outspoken reaction to UEFA’s investigation over financial fair play is based on the belief that it is part of a campaign against them orchestrated by members of the Premier League elite, particularly Manchester United. If so, it is a campaign that is working. A conveniently timed leak of UEFA’s intention to charge Manchester City, and ban them from Europe, reset the news agenda within 24 hours of their title win. Having completed the first domestic treble win, Pep Guardiola was as good as asked in his press conference if he was a crook, receiving illegal payments. And all because City’s owners didn’t turn out to be the mad hatters of popular imagination. Nobody minded their oil money enriching the league when it was failing to entice Kaka to Manchester, or missing out on Champions League football courtesy of Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham and a Peter Crouch goal. That was Cook’s City; that was 2010. At Wembley on Saturday we saw what that club became. A 116-year-old record matched; a landmark achieved; the standards of excellence being set, the bars that have been raised. City haven’t got a defender as expensive as Virgil van Dijk, a midfielder as costly as Paul Pogba, even a striker in the range of what Arsenal paid for Alexandre Lacazette. So do not be fooled. Other clubs spend, too — but perhaps not as wisely. Guardiola is also a coaching visionary, getting extraordinary improvements from his players. That’s every bit as significant. The protectionist FFP rules, meanwhile, have always been about keeping the established elite in place. Back in 2010, they thought they were untouchable, but that complacency has been exposed. Never forget the clubs who made football all about money in the first place. What they really hate is City winning at their game.