Whatever punishment Manchester City and their owners receive at the end of this process, the fact remains, everything is tainted now. Overturn the tables, scatter the gold coins. Throw your medals in the bin.
Whatever that thing was, it’s done. Stolen glory, stolen income, stolen joy. Every chant, every “we won the lot”, every awkward documentary scene about the deep, throbbing heart of this empire of love.
It all looks odd, sinister, cold, sloppy, but also, and this is always the best response, utterly absurd. This is not over of course. We still work on the principle of innocent until repeatedly proven guilty, pending mega-bucks final appeals.
There could yet be a dramatic reversal at the next stage. So for now we must also asterisk the asterisk. It should also be pointed out that City still deny all allegations, even when proven at the first instance.
They have also, in fairness, not been found guilty of all of those 100-plus charges. Maybe the club can spin this, take the positives, a vital away charge to take into the appeal. But for now this is a good day for football.
And also a good day for, of all things, the world. The Premier League may seem an unlikely revolutionary. But in the age of despotism, of endless chatter about the decline of the rules-based international order, any tribunal that finds a fund back by the one of the United Arab Emirates’ ruling families guilty of breaches of minor but still vital sporting regulations deserves its own statue outside the Royal Courts of Justice.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
