Don't let Manchester City's punishment end in a Championship trophy
William Mata argues that Manchester City's financial breaches must lead to punishment for all to see
How do we punish Manchester City? Many other football fans and I have discussed this a lot this week since the club was found guilty of 115 breaches of Premier League financial rules
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The initial ideas for punishments started off with the obvious (points deduction, transfer bans) but have come to resemble some medieval torture device of a forfeit for a football club. Forced to play home games at Old Trafford? Must begin in the first qualification round of the FA Cup? Take your pick while you can.
A disclaimer is that I do not hate Manchester City and its fans. I grew up supporting Arsenal in a time when Manchester United were the irritatingly rich and dominant team. Spurs are our local rivals. City were, instead, a club who yo-yoed between the leagues and I liked them for the cult appeal of players like Shaun Goater, Georgi Kinkladze and Ali Benarbia.
Their status in everybody’s minds changed on August 31, 2008, when Abu Dhabi United Group took the club over and promptly signed Robinho. But even then, I didn’t hate Manchester City as, after all, every club does need deep pockets to be competitive and with the club being without a league title since 1968 I could understand success was overdue.
What we know now though is that success couldn’t come quickly enough for Khaldoon Al Mubarak and co, who wanted an immediate return on their investment and, as these guilty verdicts show, were unconcerned by the rules.
Manchester City are now appealing. But if the 115 charges are upheld, what next?
The most-discussed punishment is a relegation, kicking them out of the Premier League and making them play in the Championship or an even lower earning, lesser quality, deeper, part of the pyramid.
It seems in proportion with the punishments given to Everton and Nottingham Forest for their much-smaller infractions. But when I saw a quote from celebrity fan Noel Gallagher, defiantly saying “Bring it, I’ve been down with this club lower than you can imagine,” I knew this isn’t the solution.
There is a scene in The Dark Knight Rises when Christian Bale’s Batman wakes up in a prison to ask his captor, Bane, why he didn’t just kill him, to which Tom Hardy’s villain, in his ridiculous voice, replied, “your punishment must be more severe”.
And it’s exactly the same. Authorities might think that relegating City is killing them, but if anything, I think their fans will enjoy having a chip on their shoulder, feeling wronged, and watching their team hammer far less affluent opposition around the grounds every week.
Juventus were demoted to Serie B for their part in the Italian Calciopoli scandal in 2006 and from the accounts of their players now, they had a great time - getting an extra day off training and then enjoying wine and pizza every Sunday night after another easy win.
And what’s more, it will take promotion slots away from more deserving teams, and also see City suffering out of sight for fans of Premier League rivals. Manchester United fans will not tune in to see their city cruise to a midweek win over Rotherham.
As well as a punishment for the owners themselves and a fine, a more appropriate forfeit would actually be keeping City in the Premier League but giving them a points deduction every season for X number of years.
It might seem harsh to wish for a situation where Manchester City might narrowly avoid relegation and then begin the next campaign with another 20, or so, point deficit.
But their suffering must be in plain sight. They must be made an example to show that the rules should be kept, that sportswashing and financial doping cannot just be accepted.
Football is a slog for fans and one where you might have to go through seasons, or even decades, without much to shout about but what keeps you going is the promise or memory of the moments when it all comes together, when your team finally wins.
And City have deprived so many teams of those moments by cheating the rules to hog all of those moments for themselves.
So let’s at least let another team have the joy of winning the Championship.
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William Mata is a writer and the SEO Editor for LBC
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