Two security guards hurtled down the corridor that stretches along the back of Wembley’s vast press box, the area where journalists and writers had just been sitting to take in Manchester City’s overwhelming FA Cup final win against Watford.
The men in black suits were in pursuit of a sizeable City fan who had legged it past a helpless official stood at the door to check media passes and was about to make his big announcement to the assembled media crowd. Tiny plastic City flag still gripped in his left hand with the might of a small child, wearing a straining Ralph Lauren polo shirt buttoned up to the neck, the man burst in and was able to vent his tuppence before security caught up with him. “We’ve done the domestic fooking treble!” he shouted. “No one’s ever done it before but you’ll all have Mo Salah on the back of the fooking papers tomorrow! Cit-eh! Cit-eh!”
A cursory glance at the back pages of yesterday’s newspapers did not reveal a Salah in sight, but the unusual affair prompts the question: what the hell has spawned in the baby blue half of Manchester?
The Trump card
There is something quite Trump-ian about the way City have been able to rile up their fanbase – still modest in comparison to that of their rivals despite their huge success since Sheikh Mansour bought the club in 2008 – in the face of controversy.
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Most clubs keep their counsel while under investigation for wrongdoing, but last week City launched an astonishing attack on Uefa’s chief investigator Yves Leterme.
“The leaks to media over the last week are indicative of the process that has been overseen by Mr Leterme,” City said, of an investigation which centres on a £60million payment made to the club in 2015 and whether it came directly from their owners or was sponsorship money.
The club described the process as “hostile” and “wholly unsatisfactory”, adding: “The decision contains mistakes, misinterpretations and confusions fundamentally borne out of a basic lack of due process.” In other words, this is all FAKE NEWS!
Sports-washing
Gone is the smiley corporate face of the club of previous years, replaced by a change of pace; an aggressive pitbull baring its teeth at outsiders. It all acts to stir up the fanbase in strange ways.
As increasing questions have been asked of the sports-washing of their Abu Dhabi owners – using City as a PR tool to legitimise a corrupt regime – City’s fanbase have become staunch defenders of something they actually know little about.
Yet whether or not you believe their success is clouded by their ownership, City were, let’s remember, found guilty of breaching Uefa’s Financial Fair Play regulations in 2014. Uefa looked into spending from the summer of 2011 and found they had broken the rules. In that period they signed Sergio Aguero and Fernandinho, two players who remain a core of their success.
And what of the £60m in 2015 now under investigation? That was enough to cover the cost of one or a multiple of: Raheem Sterling (£44m), Kevin De Bruyne (£55m), Gabriel Jesus (£27m), Bernardo Silva (£43m), John Stones (£47.5m), Ederson (£35m), Ilkay Gundogan (£20m), all integral to this remarkable success. On Saturday, Sterling recorded two goals and an assist, De Bruyne a goal and an assist, Jesus two goals and two assists.
Will the facade crumble?
Why did a club that has already had a staggering advantage over anyone else feel the need to stretch that between 2011 and 2014? Have they stretched it further still? They strenuously deny the claim, but we will find out soon when Uefa makes a decision, which could include a ban from the Champions League the season after next, a call the club would almost certainly appeal against.
There was a crushing inevitability about the way they beat Watford on Saturday. A final over after an hour, the last 30 minutes flat and kind of boring. Nobody feels comfortable watching a toddler pull the limbs from an insect.
Pair any two City players together and they were more expensive than the entire Watford starting line-up. Yet they could still have achieved this within the rules to which everyone is expected to adhere.
They are an incomprehensibly rich club, but then football has always had clubs who are far richer than those around them. Real Madrid and Barcelona bailed out by state banks or Spanish kings. Juventus in Italy. France’s Paris Saint-Germain are, like City, bankrolled by oil billions. Manchester United were always able to vastly outspend their rivals during the Fergie era in the age before Uefa introduced FFP rules and Arsène Wenger was forever moaning about “financial doping”.
If City constructed this behemoth within the rules, then fair play. But they have not, and with four separate investigations hanging over them, just how illegitimately this has been achieved will soon be known and could forever change the way this team is remembered.
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