As I am sure you will know, ManC have been charged by the league with a failure to provide accurate financial information, including for the seasons from 2009-10 to 2017-18. They have also been charged with failing to follow the Uefa Financial Fair Play rules, failure to comply with the profitability and sustainability rules of both Uefa and the League.
And then, because they did not co-operate with the League (but seemingly threatened to ruin the League financially if it proceeded) they have now been charged with failing to co-operate with enquiry. And as we have noted, the fact that Guardiola has now left is neither here nor there – some of the allegations relate to periods while he was in charge, others before that, but it is not suggested he had direct control over these matters now under question.
But leaked emails are said to show that ManC inflated revenue from Etihad and Etisalat and made investments into the club appear as sponsorship income, which could help bypass the rules.
Clubs that rigorously obeyed the rules have been somewhat angered by this ever since, and apparently are, in private, demanding serious penalties against the club.
There then followed further allegations of misreporting financial information, including the particularly serious offence of giving players additional payments that were not shown in the accounts. This in turn could suggest there was tax fraud being undertaken either by the club, or the players, or both, but of course I have no evidence of any of this. Mancini has denied doing anything wrong.
Since then ManC has agreed to comply with enquiries and we have had no more details, so it is quite possible that everything has been settled but the media just hasn’t been told. Although on one thng ManC are clear – they say they are not owned by the state.
Neither Guardiola nor the club want to ben shown as breaking any rules, but the PL needs to show it won’t let rich owners get away with whatever they want. I may well therefore be that private discussions are in place which will result in a settlement that each side accepts but which casts no blame. However the independent commission looking into this has been looking for 18 months and has published nothing. Guardiola has left the club.
So now we are in the post-ManC era, where, as in the late 1990s clubs were regularly winning the league while accumlating below 80 points in a season. But since they we have had the rise in the number of clubs being challenged by the Profit and Sustainability Committees of the Premier Leagues and the Championship.
Indeed, so many cases are running against clubs these days it can be hard to keep up. For example we have had Everton who rather carelessly, have managed to have themselves charged twice for breaching PSR rules during two different periods. They got a ten-point deduction, which was reduced to six because they co-ooperated – and if that sort of reduction were to be offered to ManC there surely would be an outcry, given that they have done the opposite. Everton got 10 points off, which was then reduced to six on appeal and then had two more added back.
Nottingham Forest did three years of overspending and got four points knocked off. But then Leicester got six points knocked off, with nothing reduced on appeal, while West Brom lost two points.
Following all this, Chelsea were fined 11 million euros by Uefa for undisclosed payments to agents during the Abramovich era, and Aston Villa had 11 million euros in fines after they broke monitoring rules.
As for Manc, the authorities could issue fines, but remind the club that should the club then simply pay them from extra financial input by the owners, the club would then be fined again for that extra round of financial input. That sequence could go on forever. So the alternative is that that ManC have to find the money by cutting all their other expenses (effectively selling but not buying players) or the fine becomes points, which means demotion.
It is this dilemma that I think is holding up the case. The League wants to get an agreement with ManC in order to stop the issue rolling on and on, but ManC’s owners are finding it hard to agree since they are not used to anyone imposing rules and laws on them. Certainly, as noted above, their early responses to the League’s threats against the club was that they would sue the league out of existence.
As a result of this (and I stress once again this is just my conclusion, I have no inside information in relation to any of this) I suspect that both sides want a settlement that can be agreed and carried through, and not lead to outrage from other clubs and their supporters.
Certainly, if I were working for the League, I would be looking for the withdrawal of the titles won during this era, and mega-fines. If I worked for City I would be looking for fines along the lines of those given to other clubs, and no withdrawal of titles etc. It’s a big gap between the two sides.
