MARTIN SAMUEL: If Man City had lost their appeal against European ban, they would have been CRUSHED

The jokes were doing the rounds on Monday. So Manchester City can win in Europe, ha ha. It was so much bigger than that.

So much bigger than one competition or one trophy. An existential threat.

That is what those inside the club believed they were fighting. A struggle for their modern existence, for their right to sit at the top table, not just to be taken seriously, but to be permitted access, to be allowed to walk and breathe, and maybe thrive, among the Champions League elite. 

Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City won their appeal against their two-year European ban 

It is a cosy little club, European football’s upper echelons, and UEFA kowtow to it. 

That is the problem. Financial fair play, an idea that could have been a force for good in the game — and still could be, given the economic inequality soon to be wreaked by Covid-19 — was hijacked by a powerful cabal and contorted to serve their protectionist interests.

City threatened the hierarchy. They wanted the right to come in, to play, to be allowed to challenge those who see football’s riches and its spoils as their birth right. 

And they won’t be welcome, certainly not now having scored such a public victory. Not even having won at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, having been exonerated of the worst accusations, by an independent panel of lawyers.

Manchester City have no constituency. That is their problem. They are too big and successful to hang out with their old gang, the smaller clubs, the ones who are dictated to from on high. But they are too much of a threat to be received by the traditional elite, either domestically or in Europe.

Seeking potential allies during the nervous weeks before CAS’s verdict, a City employee idly clicked on the website of the European Clubs Association. There they were, the ECA’s men of influence: from Manchester United, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, AC Milan, Bayern Munich.

It read like a who’s who of every club that had ever spoken out or denounced City. They’ve got no friends there and should know that by now. Financial fair play is the elite’s power grab. It is their ploy to turn a moment in time into permanence. And Manchester City broke through.  

Star players such as Kevin De Bruyne now have no reason to leave due to Monday's overturn

Star players such as Kevin De Bruyne now have no reason to leave due to Monday’s overturn

Juventus are influencers in the European Clubs Association (pic, president Andrea Agnelli)

Juventus are influencers in the European Clubs Association (pic, president Andrea Agnelli)

Financial fair play is the elite’s power grab. It is their ploy to turn a moment in time into permanence. And Manchester City broke through. 

If you are a fan of Newcastle, Everton, Wolves, Tottenham, any club thinking big but currently on the outside looking in, you should cheer this victory from the rafters. If this leaves UEFA’s FFP regulations damaged, it means you still have a chance.

The elite don’t want you to have a chance. They think all the tomorrows should belong to them.

City would have gone on, whatever had happened at CAS. Yet not as they are now. They would have been crushed, financially and commercially, and their competitive rivals knew that. It was the aim. Ruination. There might have been enforced executive changes.

As for the football — Pep Guardiola: gone. Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling: gone. The reshaping of a flawed defence: near impossible on current budgets. The young talents, Phil Foden and Tommy Doyle, placed in jeopardy, too.

Could Foden, now coming of age, be part of a club regulated to the periphery? That is where City came from, that was what was being imagined for them by their rivals; a return to the days when Shaun Wright-Phillips could be plucked by Chelsea, and placed among the reserves to fulfil an English qualification quota.

Raheem Sterling would surely have left Manchester City if the suspension was upheld

Raheem Sterling would surely have left Manchester City if the suspension was upheld 

Phil Foden's development would've been curbed if City weren't allowed to compete in Europe

Phil Foden’s development would’ve been curbed if City weren’t allowed to compete in Europe

The Abu Dhabi project would have been set at nought. All the good done for women’s football, for youth football, for English football in Europe would’ve been erased.

Hence the more intemperate language, the furious legal battle, the insistence vindication would follow with an independent view. City were still fined £9m for non-co-operation, a fact seized on by critics to justify their position, but even that sum was reduced by £21m from its original £30m.

The key was not City’s initial refusal to participate in an investigation provoked by hacked material, but CAS’s statement on the crucial charge, that City’s ‘disguise of equity funding as sponsorship contributions’ was not proven. 

It means the allegations City had cheated, had lied, had falsely achieved their success were unfounded. 

‘Most of the alleged breaches were either not established or time-barred.’ The two-year European ban was lifted, the fine was cut by two-thirds. Anyone arguing that this was not a comprehensive victory for the club is delusional.

It may be argued that time-barred charges mean City got off on a technicality. Here’s a technicality. Chelsea got where they are by doing everything that City did, in terms of owner investment, then worked with other elite clubs to change the rules so that growing a club using the transfer market became illegal.

Every club, at some stage in its development, has had to speculate. Only now has this been made a crime — and by the very clubs who will benefit greatly from the status quo. 

And Monday was the perfect illustration of how used the privileged few are to getting their own way. First out of the blocks, Javier Tebas, president of La Liga and a man who, as a party trick, sometimes speaks while Real Madrid and Barcelona drink a glass of water. 

LaLiga boss Javier Tebas believed City should have been thrown out of European competition

LaLiga boss Javier Tebas believed City should have been thrown out of European competition

In July 2016, European Union competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager demanded the repayment of millions in soft loans, tax breaks and sweetheart property deals given to seven LaLiga clubs, chief among them Spain’s big two.

Yet Tebas continues to insist it is City who should be thrown out of Europe for distorting UEFA competitions. Now he wants CAS thrown out, too, for not reaching the verdict his masters desired.

‘We have to reassess whether CAS is the appropriate body to which to appeal institutional decisions in football,’ he said. ‘Switzerland is a country with a great history of arbitration, CAS is not up to standard.’

Funnily enough, it seemed perfectly acceptable to Tebas in 2016, when it halved Real Madrid’s FIFA transfer ban for wrongdoing over the signing of young players. And no complaints about CAS as recently as six days ago, when it rejected Brazilian club Santos’s case against Barcelona, relating to the signing of Neymar in 2013. 

It must just be in the last week CAS’s standards have become unacceptable. When Tebas’s friends didn’t get their way. 

The system works in favour of clubs like Man United (pic, exec vice-chairman Ed Woodward)

The system works in favour of clubs like Man United (pic, exec vice-chairman Ed Woodward)

That is how the system is supposed to work. David Gill of Manchester United in the corridors of power, Rick Parry — a former Liverpool chief executive — on the UEFA financial control body that imposed City’s European ban, and pressure, pressure, pressure from outside.

Those inside City have sounded increasingly paranoid as the years have passed, have made some regrettable statements, too.

Yet City have no allies, no home, no place in football’s hierarchy. ‘We’re not really here,’ their fans sing — and if the elite had their way, they wouldn’t be, ever. That is what is meant by an existential fight. 

MANCHESTER CITY FFP Q&A 

WHAT STARTED THIS?

UEFA opened an investigation following the publication in the German media of hacked internal Manchester City emails. 

The emails suggested that City had disguised payments from their owners in the guise of inflated sponsorship deals, in an attempt to comply with UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules (FFP). 

At the probe’s conclusion, published in February, City were banned from European football for two years and fined €30million (£27m) for ‘serious breaches’ of FFP.

WHY WAS THAT VERDICT REACHED?

CAS’S panel of three highly respected judges found that City had not disguised investment from their owners as sponsorship. 

They added that most of the alleged breaches ‘were either not established or time-barred’.

TIME-BARRED?

UEFA’s own rules say there is a five-year statute of limitations over FFP offences. Given City’s alleged wrongdoing was between 2012 and 2016, some of it appears to have fallen foul of that. 

This is a key point and more will be revealed when CAS publishes its written reasons. UEFA’s interpretation of the time limit was clearly different from the appeal panel. 

It looks like it may have been a huge own goal, although there is nothing to say UEFA would have been successful had those allegations been examined.

WHY WERE CITY STILL FINED?

CAS did find that City had failed to co-operate with UEFA’s investigation (but importantly not their own). 

While City may argue that they did so because the probe was launched on the back of hacked materials, it still constituted a breach of UEFA’s rules.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MAN ALLEGED TO HAVE BEEN BEHIND THE HACKED EMAILS?

Rui Pinto is under house arrest in Portugal, awaiting trial.

WERE THE PREMIER LEAGUE NOT ALSO INVESTIGATING CITY?

Yes, over alleged financial and youth recruitment issues. They have similar FFP rules and it will be interesting to see their next move. 

The Premier League does not have a statute of limitations and will be loath to dismiss the work already undertaken, which is said to be substantial. Regardless, CAS’s finding will do City no harm.

WEREN’T CITY ALREADY DEALT WITH?

Partially. In 2014, they reluctantly accepted a £49m fine — £32m of which was suspended — and restrictions on their European squad for FFP breaches. 

At the time they said that they would have pursued the case but did not feel it was practical from a commercial and competitive standpoint.

WHAT DID CITY SAY AFTER THE BAN WAS ANNOUNCED?

Almost immediately, City — who had previously attempted to get the case thrown out — announced their intention to appeal the punishment with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). 

The club said they had ‘irrefutable evidence’ which they believed proved their case.

WHAT WAS CITY’S ARGUMENT?

THE club have remained tight-lipped throughout the process. However, it is understood that one of the key points their lawyers argued was that the emails were published without sufficient context and that when that context was added, a different picture emerged.

WHAT WAS THE VERDICT?

CAS found largely in City’s favour, overturning the ban and reducing the fine from €30m to €10m (£9m). That represents a huge victory for the club.

By Mike Keegan 

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