Why do UEFA equate City to PSG?
THErE is a reason manchester City see undercurrents of racism in the current fashion for depicting them as the worst of modern football. It all dates back to the original uEFA sanction in 2014. At the time, City went to great lengths to show the governing body the positives of their project.
The regeneration in east manchester, the new academy, the links to the community, City were way ahead of the other club facing punishment at the time, Paris Saint-Germain. Yet when uEFA announced their decision, the fines were identical.
It was as if they viewed all Arabs, all Arab owners, all Arab countries, all Arab businesses, as the same.
no attempt was made to distinguish between the clubs at all. It would be like viewing Liverpool, Arsenal and manchester united’s business models, worth and capability as interchangeable, on the grounds their owners are all Americans.
Since when, if City have seen any rhetoric best translated as ‘all the towelheads are the same’ it has been duly noted, privately not publicly.
With the recent concerted attacks on the club, City’s chairman Khaldoon Al mubarak is no longer playing nice and has made the decision to call out the worst perpetrators.
This is why he responded so forcefully to Javier Tebas, president of La Liga and the latest to link City and PSG negatively on the basis of shared ethnicity.
To say City have inflated the transfer market as if they have spent comparably to PSG’s outlay on Kylian mbappe and neymar is obviously wrong.
PSG’s bid for neymar was a game- changer. City, meanwhile, have a record signing of £60million for riyad mahrez and do not have the highest priced goalkeeper, defender, midfielder or forward in the Premier League — or anything like it — let alone Europe.
So while Tebas might not have intended racial bias in his words, lumping the Gulf state ownerships in together has always been an indicator.
manchester City and PSG have football and ambition in common, but little else apart from a tendency to frighten establishment cliques.
After all, there did not seem to be much wrong with extravagant spending when Barcelona and real madrid were the best at it and little wrong with oil money when it sponsored Atletico madrid.