Is Manchester City's fury against the machine more of a posture than a plan? | city of manchester
METROManchester City did not mince words when describing their opponents' failings. “The decision contains errors, misinterpretations and confusions that fundamentally arise from a basic lack of due process,” they argued in a vituperative assessment. “There remain important unresolved issues raised by city of manchester FC as part of what the Club has considered a totally unsatisfactory, restricted and hostile process.” Where are you going after that?
Well, five years after the above comments, issued in response to UEFA accusations alleging violations of Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules: charges that were found proven but later overturned on appeal – City are still angry, but this time with the Premier League. On Monday, their lead lawyer, Simon Cliff, took the liberty of writing to the other 19 top-flight clubs to tell them not to take the organisation's word for it. According to Cliff, the league’s summary of the outcome of the City-initiated arbitration over associated party transaction (APT) rules was “misleading and contained several inaccuracies”. Meanwhile, the league's plans to update its rules were “a reckless course (that) would likely lead to new legal proceedings with increased legal costs.” The league should change course, Cliff argued, as “it is essential that member clubs feel they can trust their regulator.”
It's not often that Cliff's messages are in the public domain, but if you've read correspondence from him that was part of the 2015 “Football Leaks” hack, the tone is strikingly similar. A wide disclosure of private communications, which led to UEFA FFP charges, among the leaked emails was a now infamous message from Cliff in which he observed that City president Khaldoon Al Mubarak had told Gianni Infantino , then general secretary of UEFA, who was phlegmatic upon receiving a financial sanction from the governing body. “(Mubarak) would rather spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue (UEFA) over the next 10 years,” Cliff wrote.
Why so combative? It's an interesting question. Listen to City and you will see clearly the reasons for their vehemence, namely that they have been the subject of accusations and attacks that should not have been, claims that they came from illegal materials (the “Football Leaks” trove) or that they were forced through . due to regulatory hostility (see above). Mubarak himself suggested that his arch-critic Javier Tebas, La Liga president, had made claims about City's financial dominance due to the “ethnicity” of the club's ownership.
It would be a mistake to suggest that these sentiments are synthetic, that City officials are not genuinely bothered by what they see as persecution of the club while raising on-field standards to unprecedented heights. At the same time, however, it is not difficult to argue that this anger could also be an effective lobbying tool, especially in the court of public opinion. A strong reprimand may be necessary if you hope to persuade people of your arguments when your very opponent off the field is accusing you of 130 breaches of its rules. This language of conflict has certainly resonated with a strain of City's online support that sees itself at war with football's governing bodies and the “cartel” clubs that have historically had a disproportionate influence over the game. Anger can rally the troops. It can also intimidate your opponents.
City's constantly clenched jaw conveys a relentlessness that is consistent with that hacked message from Cliff: that they are ready to fight and keep fighting to get what they want. In the face of this, it may seem that even the first divisionthe conquering giant so often described as a big bully, is a comparative weakling.
Such an effect would surely be useful because it currently appears that what City are seeking is the collapse of the league's current rules structure. Reading between the lines in Cliff's latest missive is the suggestion that its member clubs no longer trust the organization and that further legal action is inevitable. Part of City's challenge in the APT case saw them take aim at the league's voting structure, arguing that the votes that led to the implementation of rules led to a “tyranny of the majority”. This claim was rejected by the court, but raised the question of how else the league could adopt and enforce its rules. Perhaps by decree of its defenders?
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Any attempt to overthrow the old regime might be more persuasive to the general viewer if a compelling alternative were presented. Perhaps that was intended to be the European Super League, although it didn't turn out that way. Maybe Mubarak and Infantino can turn the FIFA Club World Cup into a competition that attracts the world's attention and doesn't have to worry about competitive balance. But maybe, just maybe, there isn't a plan. Perhaps this anger, while empowering to those who wield it, is also simply destructive, driven not simply by a desire for change but also by a desire to criticize critics.
When Mubarak made his comments about Tebas in 2019, he argued that the Spaniard was part of a concerted effort to bring down not just City but the entire Premier League. “I know people don't want to defend Manchester City, but for the love of God, start defending this league,” he said. At some point, perhaps the City president will have the same opinion again.
