THERE is a fundamental question at the heart of debate over Manchester City’s European ban.
Do you prefer football or are you more a fan of accountancy and corporate law?
Fancy football or frugal finances… which do you prefer?Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
Did you enjoy the drama of Sergio Aguero’s injury-time, title-winning goal in 2012?
Or do you think Martin Tyler would have got just as emotional over a neat piece of double-entry book-keeping?
Do you appreciate the majesty of Pep Guardiola’s City in full flow or get more of a kick over rules and regulations governing sponsorship deals in global
business?
Perhaps you go to the match and enjoy singing songs of praise to your favourite player?
Or maybe you want to join in with terrace anthems boasting that your club has ‘by FAAAAR the most ethical corporate governance the world has ev-er seen!’
Now only an anarchist would argue City, or any club, should get away with cheating Uefa rules.
If their appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport fails, they must be banned.
That much is black and white — and their future depends on the persuasiveness of lawyers in red braces rather than the vision of Kevin De Bruyne.
Because Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules exist, City apparently felt the need to circumvent sponsorship regulations to help get to where they are.
They shouldn’t have done so. But are those FFP rules fair and valid? And what is their point exactly?
Because it is a strange set of values which frowns upon Abu Dhabi’s impressive investment in the regeneration of east Manchester, while happily allowing the
Glazer family to preside over the decay of Old Trafford as a stadium and Manchester United as a club.
Man City could be stripped of TWO Premier League titles after their FFP breach
City’s crosstown rivals may now finish fifth and become beneficiaries of their Champions League ban.
Ambitious investors, bad. Debt-laden neglectors, good.
You can moan until the cows come home that modern football is all about money — but City’s ban isn’t going to reverse that.
FFP was partly designed to save clubs from fly-by-night owners but, in practice, has simply made it far less likely that a club from outside the old elite can
compete at the highest level.
It is not a moral crusade against oligarchs or the sovereign wealth of oil-rich nations looking to ‘sportswash’ their reputations.
It is a system which protects the interests of old money against new investment, making football more predictable.
We’re hardly going to head back to the sepia-tinted days when top-flight outfits were owned by the local butcher, baker or candlestick maker.
Nowadays, you must be a billionaire to own a leading club. So maybe you want Manchester City to be owned by one of those ethical self-made billionaires who
amassed their fortunes by being kind to sick children and puppy dogs.
Maybe, like me, you are concerned about human rights in Abu Dhabi and elsewhere.
Or maybe you just voted in a government which has continually boasted about tearing up this country’s human-rights legislation and which deports black people
who’ve committed petty crimes.
Football reflects the fact that we do not live in anything like an ideal world.
On the bright side, there’s now an outside chance that Sheffield United might gain a fairytale entry into the Champions League as a result of City’s
punishment.
Sheffield United, of course, funded by a Saudi prince.
City owner Sheikh Mansour was allegedly mostly funding the £67.5m-a-year sponsorship of the club’s shirts, stadium and academy via his nation’s Etihad airlineCredit: Reuters
The Champions League always was the product of the greed and self-interest of rich clubs who want to get richer still, leaving those from poorer nations without a pot to piddle in.
This season the knockout stages are the exclusive preserve of Europe’s big five leagues.
This is a competition played out between global commercial behemoths, now able to stockpile the world’s finest footballers to a far greater extent than ever before.
And yet it is undeniably bloody brilliant.
During the last two seasons, the Champions League knockout stages have elevated football to unprecedented levels of technical excellence and dramatic excitement — including a succession of staggering comebacks.
While City have only ever reached one semi-final in the competition, they have played a part in that glorious mayhem.
Last season’s quarter-final second leg against Tottenham was as thrilling a match as you could ever wish to see.
Anyway, unless their lawyers prevail over Uefa’s — and perhaps you’ll ask for the DVD of that encounter for Christmas this year — City won’t be at the party for the next two seasons.
There is every chance Guardiola and his best players will be dispersed across the continent’s established elite instead — to Real Madrid, Juventus, Barcelona
and Bayern Munich.
And what exactly will that have achieved for the game?
Latest stories on Man City’s Champions League ban
If you’re one of those people who prefer the intrigue of sporting bureaucracy to the wonderful escapism of football, then you might be looking forward to the Premier League sticking the boot into City over FFP as well.
It has even been suggested that City could be stripped of their domestic title from 2014, making an irrelevance of Steven Gerrard’s infamous slip and retrospectively handing Liverpool a second Premier League title of this year.
Perhaps they could also strip Chelsea of the titles won during Roman Abramovich’s first flush of rampant investment, or the title funded by Blackburn’s Jack Walker.
They won’t actually do that, because FFP regulations drew up arbitrary timelines, after which the extent of new investment was curtailed.
City are the chief victims of that and when they face Real Madrid in the last 16, the boos of their supporters will drown out the overblown Champions League anthem more comprehensively than ever.
And any lover of football should boo along with them.
GONG WRONG
JIMMY GREAVES turns 80 on Thursday.
He is the greatest goalscorer in English top-flight history; a man who gave immense pleasure to millions as a footballer and broadcaster.
And a brave, influential, inspiring voice when speaking out about his alcoholism, decades before such honesty was commonplace.
Yet former Tottenham and England forward Greaves has never been recognised in any way by the Honours system.
An Honours system which truly is a funny old game.
MAREGA
FORMER player Craig Ramage tells BBC Radio that Derby’s “young black lads . . . need pulling down a peg or two”.
And a visibly-distraught Moussa Marega of Porto is angrily dragged back by team-mates when attempting to walk off the pitch after being racially abused by opposition supporters.
Further proof that the ignorance which allows racism to fester in football has never been properly addressed.
RED CLAP TRAP
THERE’S been plenty of online flak for Norwich fans who shook hands and posed for selfies with Jurgen Klopp after Liverpool’s victory at Carrow Road.
But the ability to put aside partisanship and acknowledge the opposition is a precious rarity in football, usually reserved for truly great teams.
Thankfully, when Arsenal’s ‘Invincibles’ team received a standing ovation from Portsmouth fans during a 5-1 FA Cup victory at Fratton Park back in 2004, we lived in a pre-Twitter age where such magnanimity went without bitter criticism on social media.
THIN-SKINNED GOSLING
THE spat between ref Jon Moss and the Bournemouth player Dan Gosling spawned debate on whether match officials should indulge in ‘banter’ with players.
Yet audio feed revealed that Moss told the thin-skinned Gosling: “I’m not the reason you’re in relegation trouble — you are.”
Not really ‘banter’ at all. Merely a statement of fact.
Pep Guardiola tells Manchester City squad ‘I will be here next season even in League Two’
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
