As the opening games of the Premier League recently appeared as that bright sun over the horizon, millions of fans would have scanned the opening fixtures of the first weeks, plotting the object of their devotion’s possible points tally between August and December. But the biggest fixture on the Premier League calendar would not have struck them, mainly because there was no mention of it. But the date of this particular fixture will very shortly be etched into their mind. So, just for your diary you may want to pencil in Monday September 16 because this is the date that the long-anticipated independent hearing into Man City and their 115 charges will kick-off.
By Derek Ross
As this date draws ever nearer, we should expect an epidemic of schadenfreude to break out in stadiums and boardrooms across the land and probably even further afield. A particular form of delectation derived from the harbinger of the possible downfall of the current poster boys for the greatest football league on the planet.
As is often the case prior to any new season, the Premier League promises another great season bigger and better and more exciting than the last. Behind the scenes however, the general mood is darker than the inside of an undertakers with more splits between all twenty shareholder clubs than you would find in a divorce court.
And before the most defining case in its history, the league must face the possible consequences from a separate arbitration case brought by Manchester City, not to mention the continuing spending checks that are ongoing against Everton, Chelsea and Leicester City. Football eh!
Pannik In The City
Fingernails will be chewed down to the bone during the weeks following the commencement date when the best lawyer’s money can buy go head-to-head. Manchester City’s case will be put by, and I kid you not, Lord Pannick KC.
How apt that a man named Pannick finds himself propelled into a cacophony of chaos charged with the responsibility to help his client escape the encroaching abyss. Meanwhile his Blackstone chamber-mate Adam Lewis KC has signed up to fight the Premier League’s corner.
Argument and counter argument will bounce around the mahogany panelling, and who knows, maybe more revelations than a call-girl’s diary! Ever the master of understatement, Richard Masters, the league’s chief executive, remarked only last week that. “It’s been going on for a number of years and I think it is self-evident that the case needs to be heard and answered.’ Honestly, you sometimes have to wonder how people get these jobs.
The Verdict
But for all the courtroom shenanigans, argument and counter argument, all any of us are really relishing is the verdict. That fulgurous decree and irrevocable pronouncement etched in the annals of judgement.
This is most likely to arrive between January and March next year and the stakes for City are higher than the current Olympic pole vault record, because there is a very realistic possibility that Manchester City, the current odds-on favourites for a fifth straight Premier League title, could be expelled from the League by the end of this season if they lose.
Don’t believe it? Well only six months ago you would have got odds of 200/1 on that possibility becoming reality. We of course salute those who managed to back that particular horse. However, since then the odds of City being found guilty and sanctioned have now collapsed to 7/1. On the other hand, should City come up smelling of roses then the Premier League’s entire system of financial rules would be literally turned on their head if City win. They may be preparing for street parties in the red half of Manchester but the clichéd warning of ‘be careful what you wish for’ has seldom had more resonance.
One soccer pundit recently opined that sadly, ‘there’s no winners in this.’ The Manchester City boardroom, would, I suggest, beg to differ because if it’s not them the consequences could be seismic.
Difficult Times For the Premier League
These are difficult times for the Premier League who seem to be constantly putting out fires, and statements, not to mention deducting points from those clubs who simply cannot or will not follow the rules to which they signed up for.
Both Everton and Nottingham Forest were deducted points last term for PSR breaches, and it now seems likely that other clubs, particularly Leicester City, can also look forward to some form of punishment this season. The club was charged back in March for failing to submit their audited financial accounts. Honestly, it never ceases to amaze me how these clubs employ top-dog accountants on enormous salaries who can read a balance sheet but not a rule book!
Leicester of course have made the usual promise to defend themselves blah blah blah. And let us not forget those other cases which remain on the league’s radar but yet unresolved which include investigations into allegations of off the book payments during the Roman Abramovich era at Chelsea.
A Volcanic Eruption
However, as bad as these transgressions are, and that the clubs involved should rightfully be called to account, their significance is a midget to the giant of the city case, which is colossal in its scale. City’s alleged litany of rule breaches include the now usual accusation of not providing accurate financial information for nine separate seasons, not providing proper details of former manager Roberto Mancini’s salary over the four seasons he managed the club from 2009 to 2013, and not supplying full details of players’ pay over six seasons from 2010-11 to 2015-16.
We are now more than halfway through 2024. And to say, as Richard Masters has, that a resolution is overdue will certainly be another contender for understatement of the season award. As the court case commences and the verdict draws nearer, the Pompei of the Premier League may need to prepare to be subsumed beneath the lava from the Vesuvius sized eruption of Manchester City’s wrongdoing, while the club itself can look forward to life in the EFL if they lose.
Surely it could be nothing less when one considers that Everton’s eight-point deduction last season for two rule breaches around financial losses was a less serious offence. The only comparable case in recent memory is that involving Swindon Town, who were relegated for irregular payments to their players. The omens aren’t good. That confident assertion that this year’s competition will be better, greater and a more exciting season than last year, as pronounced on the Premier League website, has more than an even chance of going breasts up!
Derek Ross is an occasional contributor for First Touch. He also writes for Soccer 360 and The Top Flight