Understanding the Premier League’s accusation against Manchester City – and why the league has only moved on now | sports business

Now why did the English Premier League decide to move?

First, because the UK government has tightened its grip on football and is about to announce the creation of a body to oversee the sport. Lost days, weeks at mostto British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to introduce the novelty.

The role of this regulatory body will be to ensure that clubs meet their financial obligations, as well as to supervise the entry of money through owners and to prevent plans to “shut down” football, as in the case of the ill-fated Superliga, from being put in place. under excution.

The Premier League’s decision to battle City can be read as… Message to the government and public opinion: “We solved our problems.” Self-organization demonstration.

It does not hurt to remember that the English Premier League includes two teams dominated by two countries, both with “unlimited” money – Manchester City belongs to the United Arab Emirates, while Newcastle was recently bought by Saudi Arabia. There are a lot of reasons for concern.

The sequels of this series split between the practical and, shall we say, the symbolic. A point that helps fans understand football.

Most of the cases against City are based on reports published by German magazine Der Spiegel, based on documents leaked by Football Leaks. The facts the Premier League was accused of were only today revealed to the public in a series of texts published in 2018.

Violations of Financial Fair Play, set up by UEFA to curb runaway spending by clubs across Europe, began with the sacking of manager Roberto Mancini in 2013. It was there that City’s chief financial officer, in an internal email, warned that The loss was approx. £10m over allotment.

Another email from the same CFO revealed that of the £67.5m that was accounted for as major sponsorship by Etihad Airways, only £8m would come from the company. The remainder will be transferred by Abu Dhabi United Group, Sheikh Mansour’s conglomerate.

Club representatives deny the accusations and say the documents obtained by the report were taken out of context.

Thanks to Der Spiegel’s evidence-packed reports, everyone can see that Manchester City manipulated finances to escape financial fair play. But official use of the leaked documents is limited. With her team of lawyers and time on her side, the group manages to avoid severe punishment. There is a lack of evidence that can be used and there are prescriptions for ancient actions.

This is why practical results differ from symbolic results. Symbolically, the winner of the football team led by Pep Guardiola bears an asterisk, something like: * Won the title thanks to financial doping. But in practice, nothing really serious has happened yet. To see if in the case of the new accusation, which the English Premier League has filed this time, the case will have the same outcome as the one brought by the European Football Association.