FOR Pep Guardiola, it is all about the glory.
About footballing beauty, domination and victory.
Could Manchester City be saying bye bye to manager Pep Guardiola?Credit: Eamonn and James Clarke
But suddenly, for Manchester City, the fight is bigger than that.
It is a fight for their reputation, tarnished by Uefa’s damning verdict that they are guilty of not telling the truth about their financial figures and the source of their income.
And, more critically, it is a battle to hold on to everything that has made them one of Europe’s genuine Super Clubs.
The manager, who arguably has transformed the very fabric of the game more than anybody in the past two decades, who has proved you CAN reinvent the footballing wheel.
But also the players currently at his disposal.
And the ones Guardiola was targeting for this summer and beyond.
As ever in football, for all the talk of pots and passion, the bottom line is, well, the bottom line.
Cash. Cold, hard cash.
Something, of course, that City have had more of than anybody apart from the other so-called “state-funded” club, Paris Saint-Germain — the sporting arm of Qatari global ambition.
Yet Uefa’s decision to boot City out of the Champions League for the next two seasons will have such a significant impact that it could throw everything the club has fought for up in the air.
And that is why City will unleash the most expensive lawyers money can buy, in a bitter, brutal and determined legal campaign to get their ban overturned at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Last season City grossed £77million in TV and prize money alone from their European adventure.
That ended amid high drama and controversy at the hands of Tottenham in the quarter-finals.
And it did not include the revenue from five home games, likely to have grossed in excess of £10m in total.
Latest stories on Man City’s Champions League ban
This season they have already banked some £65m-plus — and with more to come if they can see off Real Madrid in the next round.
But that revenue was required to help meet a wage bill that stood at £316m last season.
That figure is unlikely to have gone down this term following the arrivals of Rodri and Joao Cancelo, plus new deals for Bernardo Silva, Ilkay Gundogan and, only earlier this month, Fernandinho.
The Uefa ban has, at a stroke, left City facing a potential financial black hole.
Even more of a concern, it is one that cannot be filled by the owner funding of which Uefa have accused them during the FFP case.
Most of City’s stars, including Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling — both on an estimated £300,000-plus per week — are on long-term deals, many of them until 2023 or beyond.
It means City are committed to those wages.
Yet, potentially, without the income to support them and meet FFP rules by the time they are able to return to European competition and have to put in their accounts for the Nyon inspectors all over again.
It is a significant concern — and one that may be impossible to balance out without making big decisions and major sacrifices. Another factor that transforms the picture will be the expectations and ambitions of the players.
The likes of De Bruyne, Sterling and Ederson may have bought into Guardiola’s vision, the money and the pleasure of winning the Prem.
But they also want to conquer Europe’s highest peak.
Losing two seasons of opportunity to do that, at the peak of their careers, might make them edgy and agitated. Certainly, enough to make it clear they want to be paid more to stay at the Etihad.
Which, of course, will be difficult for a club which has exchanged seemingly limitless resources for financial handcuffs.
Manchester City are going to fight Uefa all the way – which of course Pep will demandCredit: AFP
And, of course, when City go to players they want to buy, they may find agents demanding extra cash to make up for the lack of Champions League football.
A vicious circle, indeed. Only last summer, City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, unveiling their record revenue figures, promised: “The organisation is now at a level of maturity that enables us to plan on multi-year cycles.
“Both in terms of our management of squads and more widely across the business.
“This strategic planning has allowed us to create an environment in which continued on-pitch success is both possible and likely, and financial sustainability is a reality.” Yet that is no longer the given it appeared at the time.
City are, to use the parlance, lawyered up.
It is a legitimate intimidation tactic. The best-paid lawyers tend to be the best ones, after all.
They earn it by winning and City love to be winners.
But this is a match that they simply HAVE to win.
Manchester City banned from Champions League for two years and hit with £25m fine by Uefa
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
