Scale of City’s punishment is the only story but Premier League must bear some responsibility

Vincent Kompany and his Manchester City teammates lift the Premier League trophy in 2018. Photograph: Michael Regan/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenVincent Kompany and his Manchester City teammates lift the Premier League trophy in 2018. Photograph: Michael Regan/Getty ImagesScale of City’s punishment is the only story but Premier League must bear some responsibilityBarney RonayManchester City have come out fighting against the guilty verdict but the Premier League faces questions of its own

Nothing is over, nothing is done. Or at least not judging by the bravura, balls-out confidence of Manchester City’s chair, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, who remains convinced the past three days of whiplash are simply the drumroll before the big reveal, prelude to some clinching piece of evidence that will swish away the initial finding of guilt on the Premier League’s 100-plus charges.

This appears to be the official City position right now. Rope‑a‑dope litigation. Scooby‑Doo justice. A verdict that is simply exposition, buildup to that moment where we finally get to rip off the zombie mask and reveal the cranky old amusement park owner underneath, with his bulging ring‑binder full of irrefutable evidence of City’s innocence.

Read moreThis is certainly one way of going about things. Lord Pannick KC, Mystery Machine Chambers. Come for the legal expertise. Stay for the unfathomable brinkmanship.

That great escape may still present itself in more nuanced ways, most obviously in the question of what the actual punishment is here. But even in the current in-between days this feels like the end of an era. The greatest decade in the history of nation-state football projects is over. They’re selling Pep wigs in Woolworths. And we have failed, barring that promised deus ex machina, to paint it sky blue.

So what next? It is understandable there should be a great deal of confusion. This has never happened before. It is without precedent. The common assumption is that events will unfold like this: sanctions first, perhaps as early as midweek. Then an appeal. Then whatever comes next. But someone is suing someone. And it won’t be cheap or quick.

For now, the scale of City’s punishment is the only story in town. A verdict means nothing without the hammer of actual consequences. The triumphalism of those who seem personally invested in seeing City fail could still turn out to be premature.

There are many suggestions of how this may play out. Among the more lenient is a combination of a major fine, a one-season points deduction and a transfer ban. In other words, punishment that looks like punishment but isn’t really. Everyone feels vaguely vindicated. We carry on.

View image in fullscreenThe Manchester City chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, issued a statement on Saturday that has only added to the sense of confusion. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PAThere is the suggestion of political pressure applied by City’s owners, as reported most recently by Bloomberg, with the idea floated that the United Arab Emirates government wishes to see its investment protected as a quid pro quo for its trading partnership with the UK. This is not actually a conspiracy theory. It’s how the world works. Politics is real. Football is not.

At the other end of the scale is a suggestion the Premier League will press for major sanctions as a means of heading off a disastrous round of internecine litigation, club-on-club action that would risk torpedoing the thing we’ve all been watching for the past 15 years. Yes: truth, fair play, stolen glory. But won’t someone think of the brand?

Here is one small suggestion. If the verdict does hold up, the punishment handed down should include a lengthy ban on City having any kind of sponsorship. This would at least speak to the core of the charges, the allegation that state-owned companies were used to funnel in direct investment. It would force City to grow their revenue by more standard means. It may even have a beneficial effect.

Read moreNot that anyone is talking about compromise yet. One of the most notable aspects is how utterly entrenched aspects of City’s fanbase seem to be on this. Facts are malleable, principles relative. Everything must be bent to your interests.

There is a very important distinction here. It is entirely legitimate to question the existing rules. Maybe outside investment should be allowed. Spending your own money on your own property, pumping funds into the system, adding not taking: this seems not just reasonable but commendable. How can it be a crime?

This is to wilfully misunderstand the equation. If everyone else is obeying the rules, if the entire culture is based around competitiveness, then this becomes not just deceit and deliberate cheating, but a trashing of the basic idea of sport.

And, in the end, this affects people’s lives in tangible ways. Not just hopes and dreams, but employment, wellbeing, the goals you work for all your life. How many families have been uprooted, incomes affected, moments of happiness scrubbed by outcomes that might have gone the other way?

This is the state of cognitive dissonance described in al-Mubarak’s statement, which is also the only official comment by any party so far. It is not surprising there should be zero acknowledgement of any culpability, or even legitimacy to the charges. Hang on to a rising balloon and you face a difficult decision. Let go before it’s too late or just keep getting higher. Al-Mubarak is in a difficult position here, frontman for a propaganda project that has spectacularly crashed. Faced with this he has trebled and quadrupled down, and in the most tribalist way.

View image in fullscreenManchester City fans at the Etihad Stadium in 2012, when they had just won their first Premier League title. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/Getty Images“This club matters to me,” al-Mubarak begins, a club executive who is, as things stand, guilty of destroying that club’s future prospects. There is dark talk of “media reporting”, with its implication of lies and fake news, as though this is all just another structural obstacle in the way of the true victims here, inherited dictatorial billionaires.

“Here’s what I said to my family,” al-Mubarak goes on, weirdly dragging his own relatives into the picture, before offering once again the most intriguing element, the suggestion there is some key detail here, some game-changing element City are desperate to get out, but which has so far been prevented from entering a properly constituted legal tribunal. “There are so many things that I would like to be able to share with you to help you understand why we feel so confident.” This is not a standard line after being found almost unanimously guilty.

So what is he getting at? Part of the problem is the rush to demonise only one side, to see simply bad guys and good guys. In reality, it seems likely the written judgment will heavily criticise the Premier League’s governance.

Rightly so. These charges have been doggedly pursued, but what about, well, everything else? How did an organisation that maintains its serial champions have been cheating for a decade and a half allow this entity into its competition in the first place? How did it fail so completely to regulate it?

How about, to choose one example, Roman Abramovich, the Kremlin-connected oligarch on whom the British government overnight imposed sanctions as an unfit person, whose own irregularities are well documented? The Premier League has always basically been a TV rights agency masquerading as a regulator. As long as the show rolls on, well, the show rolls on.

This is the only real conclusion to be drawn from any of this. Some kind of governance is being effected here. But this remains a leaking, lurching pirate ship of an organisation. In any sane version of the current timeline there would be pressure for a complete reconsideration of how and why the Premier League exists.

One thing was obvious years before the current state of emergency: countries should not own football clubs. Sovereign wealth funds should not own football clubs. There is an irreconcilable conflict of objectives here. All is fair in foreign policy. Countries will spy, steal and misdirect to gain influence. It is pretty much a patriotic duty to do these things.

But you really don’t need to invite that level of supra-judicial chicanery into your delicate cultural treasure of a sport. What did anyone think was going to happen here? What would the people of the Netherlands think if the UK government bought AZ Alkmaar and began pumping in funds via sponsorship deals with National Rail and the Highways Agency, all the while promising to play fair? This is what the Premier League has permitted. You don’t really get to act surprised when it goes a bit wonky.

View image in fullscreenThe sun sets over the Etihad Stadium. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PAIt is also important to remember that English football hovers like a locust cloud over every other league. The reeling-in of talent and expertise is hugely destabilising. How are you supposed to feel in Germany or Belgium about the fact City and Chelsea have between them spent more than £3bn on transfer fees, all of which is now tainted, apparently put into circulation by something other than a legitimate sporting project?

There is a fair case for Uefa to seek recompense, even to withdraw its patronage until this bandit league gets its own house in order. This won’t happen, because of eyeballs and income flows. But this is down to the balance of power, not any sensible idea of procedure or morality.

What next, then? It is hard to see how a combined 89 charges of failure to provide accurate information or to cooperate with an investigation can be overturned on appeal. But it is also far from impossible. City’s bullishness is presumably based on information from their legal team. The next stage after appeal would be the high court, where different rules on evidence and the law may apply. Perhaps the long game is to get to that stage. It may even work, as it did at the court of arbitration for sport with the Uefa case. Or maybe they’re just planning to spin it out until everyone goes broke, dies or gets into esports.

But in the end, why would you do this? What do you actually want from football? Is proving to the last decimal point that this is all technically admissible really a desirable outcome? The level of sustained, destructive aggression is telling in itself. As are the potential macro-implications.

Read moreMost obviously, this case speaks more widely to the way money and power flow in and out of Britain. One version of the endgame is that City’s owners could be forced by the football regulator to sell up. Manchester City are a vast going concern. Imagine the wider shockwaves if this were to happen.

View image in fullscreenPep Guardiola with the Manchester City chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PATo take one example, a significant amount of the UK property market’s enduring rock‑solid value is built on the idea of inviolable property rights, safety in ownership. Where better to park your funds than a place where the rule of law seems to work for and not against you? London alone is said to have more than £4bn worth of value bound up in dark money. Imagine the ripple effects if a decision on a set of sporting regulations ends with a sovereign state being ordered to forfeit property. Never mind the abrupt lurch into negative equity. It’s enough to make you feel a little pride once more in the power of the wig and the rulebook.

More directly, this remains an existential threat to the league. Not least in the depth of ill-feeling. City’s owners clearly have a deep hostility towards their fellow Premier League members, who are being portrayed as partial and culturally biased. Why would you want to remain part of this organisation? Why would you make any effort to protect it?

Nothing is over, nothing is done. All that seems certain is that this would probably be a good time to hoist the death’s‑head flag and get that old Super League ship rolling again. There might just be a few more takers this time.