When the Manchester City decision finally dropped, the Guardian’s verdict was damning. Instead they were penned more than 120 years ago, at the culmination of English football’s first big illicit payments scandal. Back then City were a club rapidly on the up, with money and attitude to burn – which might sound familiar.
Yet having won the FA Cup in 1904, everything began to unravel. It started on the final day of the 1905 season, when City were on the verge of winning the title only to lose against Aston Villa in a match that involved punches and literal mud-slinging. Far more seriously, City’s star player, Billy Meredith, was also heard offering a £10 bribe to the Villa captain, Alec Leake, to throw the game.
Some say it was not serious. To this day no one knows the mysterious spectator who reported it. But it created a butterfly effect that led to Meredith being suspended for a season, and ramifications that lasted for decades.
Soon after, when Meredith was seen still hanging around City despite his ban, the FA launched a fresh investigation into the club’s finances. It found that not only was City’s gate money being funnelled into the private accounts of club directors, it was being used to give off-the-books payments to players. Meredith, for instance, was on £6 a week when the maximum wage was £4.
And he was far from the only one being given a little extra on the side. It led to the FA banning 17 players from playing for City again, while two of the club’s directors were banned for life. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
So is what happened to City all those years ago relevant to modern times? First off, the 1906 case proves that strong punishments work. While City were hardly the only club to be making similar illicit payments, the FA’s sanctions led to the club slipping down the table, being relegated three years later, and not winning the title until 1937.
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