PA<\/a><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\nThe club recently saw off one of their biggest challenges in recent years \u2013 a 20-month legal battle with European football\u2019s governing body UEFA.<\/span><\/p>\nIn July, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), an international body established to settle sports-related disputes, found in favour of City\u2019s appeal against sanctions for \u201cserious breaches\u201d of Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations committed between 2012 and 2016.<\/span><\/p>\nThe decision meant that a two-year ban from European competition was overturned, but it came up short of full exoneration with a \u20ac30 million fine reduced to \u20ac10 million. This, CAS said, reflected the club\u2019s culpability to the lesser charge of failing to cooperate with UEFA\u2019s club financial control body.<\/span><\/p>\nThe more serious allegation of \u201cdishonest concealment\u201d of revenue attracted from sponsorship deals \u2013 otherwise known as financial doping \u2013 was thrown out, much to the delight of the Abu Dhabi-owned club. City officials thanked CAS for its \u201cdue diligence and due process\u201d claiming \u201cvalidation of the club\u2019s position\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\nWhy this happened<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nIn 2009, UEFA proposed FFP to try and curb European clubs\u2019 inflationary spending on player transfers and wages. The new rules were rolled out on a staggered basis from 2012 with full implementation by 2015 and a \u201cbreak-even\u201d requirement as the main pillar of financial discipline.<\/span><\/p>\nAs FFP would ultimately prevent wealthy owners from bankrolling clubs from their own vast resources, it was telling how in 2010-2011 City recorded English football\u2019s biggest ever financial loss of \u00a3197 million a year before winning a first league title for nearly 40 years.<\/span><\/p>\nThe club was sanctioned for FFP breaches in 2014 when the rules had come into force, albeit \u00a333 million of a \u00a349 million fine was returned three years later as City met with operational and financial measures put in place by UEFA.<\/span><\/p>\nIt was thought that increased commercial revenue from Man City\u2019s improved success had helped the club turn its losses into profit to now comply with FFP. That is until leaked documents alleged City had misled UEFA by inflating the value and disguising the true financial source of some commercial deals that led back to the club\u2019s owners.<\/span><\/p>\nReputation and relations<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nCAS\u2019 recent ruling, based on \u201cinsufficient evidence\u201d and \u201ctime-barred\u201d dealings, has left many frustrated. Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp described the decision as \u201cbad for football\u201d, while Tottenham\u2019s Jose Mourinho branded it \u201cdisgraceful\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\nBullish to the end, City boss Pep Guardiola insists his club deserves an apology. \u201cWe were damaged,\u201d said the Spaniard. \u201cThe people say we cheated and were lying \u2013 and many times. The presumption of innocence wasn\u2019t there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nThe significance of Guardiola\u2019s point about damage to reputation should not be understated. While a two-year Champions League ban could have left a \u00a3200m hole in City\u2019s revenues, money is perhaps not the primary motive for multi-billionaire football club owners from territories such as Abu Dhabi.<\/span><\/p>\nResearch suggests that what appeals to the owners of some of the world\u2019s biggest football clubs are so-called \u201csoft power gains\u201d. Or in other words, countries whose political and human rights records have drawn criticism in the past, like to invest heavily in elite sport.<\/span><\/p>\nCountries such as Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan and China have all increasingly aligned themselves with elite sports and mega-sports events in the pursuit of improved international relations and geopolitical acceptance. This is sometimes referred to as \u201csportswashing\u201d their image.<\/span><\/p>\nFinal whistle for FFP?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nFor parent company City Football Group then, whose pan-global interests stretch from Manchester to Mumbai, New York to Melbourne and Yokohama to Sichuan, Girona, Lommel and Montevideo, reputational damage could have far-reaching and lasting effect.\u201c<\/span><\/p>\nNonetheless, there are those who believe the CAS decision has undermined FFP to the point of no return and that the balance of power has shifted towards super-rich clubs intent on outspending their rivals regardless of cost.<\/span><\/p>\nBut there are others who feel the system is not completely broken. UEFA, for one, might point to how Europe\u2019s top leagues have generated more than \u20ac4.3 billion in operating profits over the past five years. This is in stark contrast to combined operating losses of more than \u20ac740 million reported in the five years from 2009 prior to FFP.<\/span><\/p>\nAs proponents will say the system works if everyone plays by the same rules, opponents claim FFP serves simply to maintain the traditional economic status quo in European football \u2013 old money preventing new money from joining an exclusive elite.<\/span><\/p>\nTime will tell what the fallout really means for club ownership, FFP and UEFA. For now, Manchester City will rest safe in the knowledge that regardless of how they fare in this season\u2019s delayed Champions League competition, they will be sat at the top table again next year.<\/span><\/p>\nDavid <\/strong><\/span>Randles<\/span>
\n<\/strong>Senior Lecturer in Sports Journalism, <\/span>
\nLiverpool John Moores University<\/span><\/p>\n
\n* Published in print edition on 11 August 2020<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By David Randles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":28198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8348],"tags":[18311,11319,26218,6042,8203,17521,26219,26220],"class_list":["post-28197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-conversation","tag-financial-fair-play-rules","tag-football","tag-manchester-city","tag-premier-league","tag-soft-power","tag-the-conversation","tag-uefa","tag-uefa-champions-league"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/City.jpg?fit=926%2C607&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-7kN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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