Fans welcome Manchester City players before the start of the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Aston Villa at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, England, on May 22, 2022. Manchester City has been accused of numerous breaches of the Premier League's financial regulations between 2009-18. The period covers the first nine full seasons under the club’s Abu Dhabi ownership.Dave Thompson/The Associated Press
As far as financial flimflammery goes, it’s not like Manchester City has been keeping anything a secret.
Was it spending in the neighbourhood of $3-billion on players that tipped someone off? Or was it the fact that the team’s major sponsor – Etihad Airways – is controlled by the same people who own the club?
One year City lost $400-million, and that’s just the amount it was prepared to say out loud. The real loss was presumed to have been much higher.
The economics of top-flight soccer were ridiculous before a ruling family of the United Arab Emirates bought Manchester City as a national marketing prop, but it helped turn them preposterous. It has spent the past 15 years taking the ‘business’ part out of the sports business.
And now people are angry?
On Monday, the Premier League charged the club with breaking its financial rules more than a hundred times over many years.
The details of this anti-con are delightful. One instance involves an alleged secret salary paid to former manager Roberto Mancini. According to a data leak, Mancini was paid about $3-million per annum to coach City. Then he was paid millions more to coach an Abu Dhabi-based club for just four days a year.
Imagine this sort of fun spun out in dozens of different ways. In another instance, the agent for a top player was put on a $7-million annual salary. For what? For whatever. For picking up the phone when City called, I guess.
One can only imagine the entire team doing the Croc Rock dance around their $350-million training facility, showering each other in hundreds. I get sweaty just thinking about the Christmas tips for the clubhouse attendants.
No wonder City’s esprit de corps is legendary. Like everything else at the club, it was purchased at great expense.
One thing that is not at issue here – it worked.
We’re not just talking about the team’s success. It has gone from a working-class striver to the tippy top of world soccer, trailing trophies like tin cans.
It’s the good work City has done on behalf of its owners. Fifteen years ago, most people would never have heard of the United Arab Emirates, and many fewer than that would be able to find it on a map. Now that tiny Gulf state is famous for bank-rolling the most ambitiously profligate sports franchise in the world.
When you think of the Emirates now, you think of price being no object when it comes to quality. I’ll bet the owners believe that was well worth a few billion that they had lying around.
City isn’t the only offender here. Chelsea is the original sugar-daddy club. People loved Chelsea’s Last Days of Disco approach to a spreadsheet, right up until they started thinking about where the money came from. The British government compelled the club’s Russian owner to sell it. It was bought by an American, Todd Boehly. Boehly is currently managing the double trick of spending huge gobs of money, while also running the team into the ground.
The Qataris liked the look of City so much that they decided to buy Paris Saint-Germain. PSG is a strangely unpopular club that has one attraction – Paris. The owners are now at war with that city over their stadium. They want to buy it. Paris would rather they just fix it up and let Paris continue to own it. Guess who’s going to win that one?
The Saudis felt left out so they bought Newcastle. Two years ago, that club could just barely keep its mouth north of water. Now it’s in with a puncher’s chance to win the Premier League.
Collectively, we’ve lost the ability to be shocked by dollar values any more. But more than anyone anywhere in any sport, these owners keep trying.
It no longer seems weird that Chelsea would go out in the winter transfer window and pay a British record $175-million on a player no one knew before November’s World Cup (Enzo Fernandez), and another $140-million on a guy who had one great night in the Champions League (Mykhaylo Mudryk). These aren’t investments. They are straight-up gambles. Speaking strictly financially, they make little sense.
Which is what everyone wants. They want bigger numbers, bigger risks, bigger failures and bigger stories. They want everything big.
Big costs, and a lot more than what turns up on the balance sheet.
Singling out City isn’t unfair. It’s the obvious next phase of this financial soap opera. It adds another layer of intrigue to the world’s most intriguing league. You’re not just trying to win titles, secure the sexiest employees and continue pushing the economic superlatives up. You’re also trying to slip one by the boss.
The proposed investigation into City’s financial practices will have broad (read: ad hoc) power to enforce a punishment. This sort of thing is a regular feature in Italy’s top division. Clubs routinely lose points or championships because of some malfeasance or another. Some of the stuff there is actually quite bad – bribing officials and such. But it’s never stopped them from putting a product on the field.
Every time you look up, Italy’s top team, Juventus, is under investigation. It is under investigation right now. It’s all part of the Mediterranean fun.
The Emiratis and the Saudis wanted in on Britain, and now the Brits want in on Italy.
The good news for City is that there is no punishment that could be inflicted on them that has lasting consequences. At worst, it could be busted down a full division.
It’s not like it’s going to have trouble paying its salaries, or its secret salaries, or its secret secret salaries. It could be vicious fun watching the world’s most expensively assembled soccer roster playing Huddersfield and Luton Town every Saturday.
More likely, it’s a big fine that City can well afford and a massive docking of points, which it won’t care about. It’s forcing someone to put a few bills back in the register while their colleagues are in a laneway out back filling a car trunk with money.
It’s farcical, but it’s also entertaining. Give full credit to the Premier League. It doesn’t just sell you a team for however many hundreds-of-millions of pounds. It sells you a full spectrum of marketing services, including looking the other way, not looking the other way, and ensuring that you make news either way.