A question of 'causation'

Although I've already discussed the '115 charges' affair at some length last week, there is one further aspect of the general response to the issue which has bothered me during the recent furore: the commonplace assumption that City's alleged financial chicanery (and it's still not unequivocally 'proven') was somehow solely responsible for the success that they've achieved in the Mansour era.

The amount by which the club supposedly 'inflated' its income is indeed very large (getting on for a billion pounds, according to some accounts). But from what I've read, it seems that, in addition to trying to conceal the true source of a lot of that funding (it was being channelled through Etihad Airways, but was supposedly originating from Sheikh Mansour's private fortune, or from his investment fund, Abu Dhabi United Group, or other companies that the sheikh controls), they were also just lying about the value of that principal sponsorship, and not in fact receiving all of the money that the sponsorship deal promised. Whether they did receive the full amount or not, the purpose of these shenanigans was to raise their spending cap under the shifting FFP/PSR restrictions; it's unlikely that all of that 'extra money' was available for transfer spending; and, even if it was, it certainly wasn't all used.

City's spending on player acquisitions during the period of the 'charges' (around 1.4 billion pounds) was only very slightly higher than Chelsea's; and their other major rivals, Liverpool and Manchester United, also came in at well over 1 billion pounds of transfer spending. Moreover, City have done very well out of selling players on again for good prices, so their net spend is substantially less than that. Also, they've never exactly taken a 'Galacticos' approach of just throwing around stupid money in pursuit of star names; for the most part, they've paid sensible prices for well-targeted assets like Aguero or Rodri, picked up unregarded gems like Bernardo Silva, or promoted their own academy products like Phil Foden and Nico O'Reilly. Of course, there have been a few high-profile splurges, like the ridiculous 100 million lavished on Jack Grealish (WTF???) - but they were the exception rather than the rule. City haven't been nearly as profligate and ostentatious in their player acquisitions as Chelsea were in the early days under Abramovich.

Now, if we accept that the League's attempts to restrict transfer spending are fair and reasonable and 'for the good of the game', it is logical enough to assume that clubs seeking to evade those regulations are doing so in order to try to gain an 'unfair advantage'. The question I am raising here is not whether City did something wrong, or whether they gained some advantage from that wrongdoing; it is solely about the extent of that advantage gained. And, I fear, that is essentially unquantifiable. It is a bit of an accounting nightmare even to identify how much additional money City may have been able to spend on players because of these rule breaches (if indeed they occurred); it is impossible to point to particular players who were acquired with money that should not have been there, or to assess what the impacts on team performance might have been.

And, frankly, I don't find such financial 'sleight of hand' to be nearly so morally contemptible as forms of cheating which have a more direct and egregious impact on the pitch. We have seen numerous examples over the years (especially in Italian football!) of clubs bribing referees to secure results, bribing opposition players to underperform, or even agreeing to 'throw' games themselves. Sorry, but I just don't see 'cooking the books' as being in any way comparable to that sort of cheating. I mentioned in my first essay on this issue last week that there have been some probable instances of chemical doping with decisive outcome in the sport's history too (West Germany's extraordinary stamina that helped them to secure the 1954 World Cup is now thought to have been achieved with the aid of amphetamines). There have also been many occasions when a dreadful refereeing mistake affected the outcome of a major competition (like Charles Corver's inexplicable decision not to punish Harald Schumacher for the attempted murder of Patrick Battiston in the semi-final of the 1982 World Cup). And we've seen blatant cheating by an individual player have a decisive impact in a game - such as Maradona's infamous 'Hand of God' goal which helped to eliminate England in the 1986 World Cup, or Thierry Henry's handball which led to Ireland's missing out on qualifying for the 2010 World Cup, or Sergio Ramos's cynical foul on Mo Salah which forced him out of the 2018 Champions League Final. Those are horrendous examples of cheating on the pitch, which have tainted the history of the game.

What actually offends fans the most is not really the 'lying' to obtain an even bigger financial advantage, but the having such a massive financial advantage in the first place. Rival fans have always resented City, they've always sulked that the club's vast financial resources are 'unfair'; now, they just have an additional reason to stoke those fires of resentment even higher. Supporters of more modestly funded clubs have always bridled at the notion that super-rich owners like Abramovich or Mansour could afford to assemble super-squads that would be impossible to compete against and would, in effect, be buying the League title. The various inept and half-hearted attempts the League has made to limit the spending-power of the big clubs have not eliminated this problem, only curtailed it slightly (and it is a common complaint that the main impact of these regulations has in fact been to hamstring the poorer clubs and exaggerate rather than diminish the wealth gap in the game).

Manchester City would not have become the powerhouse of English football without Mansour's massive legitimate investment in the club. But they probably would have, even without the supposed additional 'illegal' investments. The exact impact of that extra money can never be fully gauged. But if the club are ultimately found guilty and are punished, they will be punished on a strict liability basis - because any breach of the financial regulations is culpable and is deemed to compromise or invalidate successes on the pitch; not because of any specific impact of those rule breaches, not because of an assertion that these breaches were solely responsible for City's successes on the pitch. That is fatuous nonsense that jealous rival fans are using to work themselves up into a vengeful frenzy.