MANCHESTER CITY are in the dock.
Finally, a football club being brought to book. This may yet just be the saving grace of football.
Uefa have found the courage to sanction one of the so-called ‘Super Clubs’ by enforcing Financial Fair Play and booting them out of Europe for two years.
FFP wasn’t brought in to protect the elite and stymie the opportunities of lesser clubs. It was to provide long-term sustainability for clubs.
It doesn’t stop clubs buying players, as player values on balance sheets go both up and down.
FFP was brought in to create a downward pressure on the biggest cost — player wages — which is where the real impact on profitability comes.
I have discussed my belief that it will take the proper sanctioning of a “big club” in order for FFP to develop teeth and it will be the saving grace for all clubs.
The trickle-down effect of wages from leagues such as the Premier League is strangling clubs and it’s no coincidence that four Championship clubs have been charged in recent times.
City are being punished for not one breach — as they were charged and sanctioned in 2013 — but for multiple breaches.
Their apparent inherent belief, given they’re funded by Nation State money, is that they’re able to do exactly as they please — committing the breaches, refusing to co-operate to any great level, to even suggesting they don’t recognise the jurisdiction of Uefa.
As a club, there’s lots to admire about them, from investment in the local community to their stylish football.
But what’s not to be admired is the victim complex being perpetuated by their indignant chiefs and outraged fans, who believe that Uefa have got it in for their club.
They’re not a ‘Super Club’. They are a manufactured club.
Not built out of great history or iconic image but one bought by Middle Eastern money seeking soft influence via sport.
Alas, this wealth doesn’t entitle them to sign up to rules of an organisation and then pick and choose which ones they want to adhere to.
The sanction is based upon, amongst other things, leaked emails that found their way to German newspaper Der Speigel and describe the artificial increase of sponsorship revenues, funded by the club’s owner, thus breaching FFP.
When they were first sanctioned in 2013, these issues were already there, alongside player image rights, salaries and intellectual properties being paid by other means. So, they clearly have form.
The simple facts are City are unlikely to be innocent victims singled out by Uefa, who, despite not being a perfect entity, are the governing body for European competition and to whose rules all clubs have signed up.
It’s rich that this club are now suggesting they don’t recognise the authority of Uefa and are outraged that they are judge, juror and executioner.
This, despite signing up to the rules and taking the benefits. Next stop is the Court of Arbitration for Sport, to see if they can get it overturned and then, perhaps, even further into other legal recourse if they don’t get what they think they are entitled to, in a bid to try and challenge the very fabric of what holds football together.
All of this to suit their own agendas in a business that, by definition, is rightly bound together by collective organisation and competition.
I hope Uefa have got it right, otherwise they may not survive as an organisation — and if you replace the establishment, who knows what you get.
I hope the CAS holds up a verdict that will cement enforceability of rules in an industry where they are much needed.
Then all that’s left is for the Premier League to have the balls to sanction them too.
Not retrospectively, as some are suggesting, but going forward by either points, or like Saracens — rugby’s equivalent of City — relegation.
Then we will have begun the squaring of a circle towards the long-term protection of the national sport.
SIMON JORDAN’S Final Word is on talkSPORT every Sunday from 5-8pm.
