| | 16/09/2024 Monday briefing: How Manchester City’s 130 legal battles could turn football upside down | | | | Nimo Omer |  |
| | | Good morning. Donald Trump says he is “unharmed” after what the FBI believes was the second attempt on the former president’s life in two months. On Sunday, Trump was golfing at his club in West Palm Beach Florida when a US Secret Service agent spotted a man with a firearm. The suspect fled after the agent opened fire, but he was later detained and remains in custody. For now, it remains too early to speculate on the motives of the alleged attacker, or on how this latest twist will affect the election that is now less than two months away. Today’s newsletter is on one of the most significant legal cases in football history, but for the latest information on the attempted assassination, you can follow live updates on the story and if you need a quick summary of what has happened overnight, we’ve got that covered here. ---------------------------------------- When Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family acquired Manchester City in 2008, the club had only won two league titles and had gone without a trophy for 32 seasons. After decades of purgatory, the last 16 years under Mansour have been defined by a turbo-charged transformation that turned the club into a record-breaking machine. The club made history this year by winning the Premier League title for the fourth time in a row (and its sixth in seven years), sealing a streak of unparalleled dominance. These wins have come at a steep cost – by 2018, City’s owners had spent over £1.3bn directly investing in players, managers, the home stadium and marketing worldwide. But, over the years, there have been accusations that the club’s financial transactions have not all been above board. Last February, the Premier League announced the Sky Blues were facing 115 breaches of its financial rules, which later increased to 130. The case into possible financial impropriety begins today at an unknown location and is expected to run for 10 weeks. For today’s newsletter, I spoke with Jonathan Wilson, who writes the Guardian US football newsletter, about City’s legal battle and what it tells us about the impact of ever-increasing amounts of money on the sport. That’s right after the headlines. | | | | Five big stories | 1 | Europe | Germany will reintroduce temporary checks at all nine of its land borders on Monday in a move that has drawn criticism from several of its European partners but praise from the far right. The decision came after a series of deadly knife attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers, and historic successes by the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland party in two state elections. | 2 | | 3 | | 4 | Welfare | Black and other ethnic minority benefit claimants are disproportionately likely to be hit with universal credit sanctions – financial penalties typically running into hundreds of pounds – according to official statistics unveiled for the first time. | 5 | |
| | | | In depth: ‘We could be talking in terms of hundreds of points being docked’ | | Jonathan traces this story all the way back to the early 1990s, when top-tier clubs broke away from the Football League to form the Premier League. This nascent league consciously adopted “a very light-touch regulatory approach and that meant that pretty much anybody could buy a club”. What no one anticipated at the time were the oligarchs, venture capitalists and even states that would eventually be investing in English football. Manchester City’s most recent legal woes began in 2018 when German magazine Der Spiegel published leaked emails, and alleged that the club’s owners were breaking Uefa’s financial fair play (known as FFP) regulations through fabricated sponsorship deals and secret contracts. The club was also allegedly paying players using surplus funds from the Abu Dhabi royals, which amounted to more than was in the club’s accounts. The allegations sparked a Uefa investigation that eventually led to a two-year ban from European football. (The ban was eventually lifted after an appeal and the club were instead told to pay an £8m fine). The scrutiny subsided until February 2023, when the Premier League brought a catalogue of charges against the club.
The Premier League charges Despite the scale and seriousness of the charges, there was no press conference or announcement. “There was no great moment,” Jonathan says. “They just suddenly cropped up on the Premier League’s website and everybody became aware of it quite slowly.” Broadly, the Premier League has accused Manchester City of repeatedly breaching financial rules across nine seasons. The 130 charges include: • 54 breaches of failing to provide accurate and up-to-date financial information from 2009/10 to 2017/18. • 14 breaches of failing to provide accurate financial reports for player and manager compensation from 2009/10 to 2017/18. • Five breaches of failing to comply with Uefa’s regulations, including Uefa’s club licensing and financial fair play regulations. • Seven breaches of Premier League profitability and sustainability regulations from 2015/16 to 2017/18. • 35 breaches of failing to cooperate with Premier League investigations from December 2018 to present. The hearing will litigate these charges, but a verdict is not expected until next spring. When the charges were brought against them, Manchester City said it was “surprised” and issued a full-throated denial of all the charges.
The stakes | | There has been a lot of speculation about what could happen to Manchester City if it is found guilty of some or all of these breaches. The punishment could range from a substantial fine to a points deduction, relegation or even expulsion from the league. “We’re not sure what expulsion from the league means in practice because presumably City would try to rejoin, but it’s not clear if they would join at the Championship or League Two or whether they would have to start even lower down,” Jonathan says. Last season, Everton were docked eight points for much smaller infractions than the allegations against Manchester City. “So we could be talking in terms of hundreds of points being docked,” Jonathan says. “Obviously, once you get beyond about 60 or 70 it’s irrelevant because you’re already bottom of the league – there’s no difference”. If this were to happen, City would inevitably appeal, as it did in the Uefa investigation, and it would probably mark a new phase in a very lengthy, very expensive legal battle. Even if City is exonerated, or given a less serious punishment like a fine or a ban from signing players for a year or two, the situation has already left other clubs in the Premier League“furious”, Jonathan says. He says that if Manchester City isn’t severely reprimanded, “[other clubs] are briefing that they are prepared to take legal action of their own and potentially even quit the Premier League and go back into the Football League”. Taking the steps to actually quit the league may prove too difficult in the end, but the fact that some clubs are threatening to do so demonstrates the level of anger and the enthusiasm to see City penalised. The Premier League is in a bind either way. Losing this case would deal a heavy blow to its credibility and authority, while winning would inevitably lead to an extensive and extremely costly legal battle against City that could go on for years.
The bigger picture The effects of this case on football as a whole could be seismic because it threatens to fundamentally disrupt trust in the sport. “As soon as you think that what you’re watching could be overturned in a court later on, then why would you invest emotionally in that?” Jonathan asks. Once points get docked and the lead position is determined not by results on the pitch but by what happens in these committees, people will inevitably be turned off. The legal battles and financial regulation have begun to subsume the sport itself, Jonathan says. “I think it’s a great shame for Manchester City this season that [City’s lawyer] Lord Pannick is almost as important as Erling Haaland, and that’s really not the way it ought to be,” Jonathan says. However, the City case is just one strand, Jonathan adds, of a much wider problem in the sport and “we are reaching crisis point”. “The problem now with pretty much every European league is that the big teams win everything all the time,” Jonathan says, which disrupts the competitive balance of the games. Inevitably, as these teams win they become wealthier, allowing them to buy the best players and managers, and the cycle continues. As Jonathan says, “the greed is phenomenal”. | |
| | What else we’ve been reading | | I loved Neneh Cherry answering Observer reader questions, expertly threaded together by Miranda Sawyer. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters 625,000 children in Gaza are starting a second academic year with no school. Bethan McKernan spoke with educators trying to maintain some semblance of normality for them, although – sadly – “no ceasefire that could help restore normality is on the horizon”. Nimo Hannah Ewens is strong on star singer Chappell Roan and why a whole generation now struggles to respect musicians’ boundaries. Hannah It often feels like every corner of London is littered with Lime e-bikes, strewn about haphazardly across the pavement. One council has said enough is enough. Sammy Gecsoyler spoke with the leader of Brent council, the first in the UK that is trying to impose a ban on the bikes. Nimo I loved Ammar Kalia’s latest New start after 60 column on Norma Geddes, who found her inner artist at 70. Just look how gorgeous Norma’s stained glass is! Hannah
| | | | | Sport | | Football | Arsenal left rival Tottenham’s stadium with a win for the third season in a row after Gabriel Magalhães’ second-half header settled a feisty and physical north London derby. Newcastle fought back from a half-time deficit with two long-range strikes in the space of five minutes to beat Wolverhampton 2-1, moving into third place in the Premier League. Golf | Suzann Pettersen vowed Europe would “come back very hungry” after losing the Solheim Cup for the first time since 2017. The US held off a brave fightback from Pettersen’s side to win 15.5 to 12.5 at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Virginia, where world number two Lilia Vu birdied the final two holes against Swiss rookie Albane Valenzuela to edge a nervy home team over the line. Formula One | Oscar Piastri won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with an exceptional drive for McLaren after an enormously tense battle to the flag with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in Baku. Lando Norris made a superb and unlikely comeback drive to take fourth having started in 15th to keep his title hopes alive, finishing in front of title rival Max Verstappen who was fifth. | |
| | The front pages | | The Guardian leads with “Trump targeted in attempted assassination at his golf course”. The Times has “Trump targeted again in attempted assassination”, while the Telegraph follows the same story with “Trump ‘targeted by gunman’ on his golf course”. The Financial Times looks ahead to the presidential election with “Harris maintains post-debate lead over Trump on economy, says poll”. The i reports “PM sets sights on Italy-style migration deal to tackle small boats crisis.” The Mail has “Why can’t millionaire Starmers buy their own clothes?” The Mirror reports on “olive branch” moves from King Charles and Prince William on Prince Harry’s 40th birthday, with “Royal peace gesture”. | | | | Today in Focus | | Revenge of the childless cat ladies Elle Hunt reports on how Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate JD Vance calling Democrats “childless cat ladies” backfired. | | | | | Cartoon of the day | Edith Pritchett | | Sign up for Inside Saturday to see more of Edith Pritchett’s cartoons, the best Saturday magazine content and an exclusive look behind the scenes | | | | The Upside | A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad | | In the heart of east London, Anthony Ussher has transformed a small patch of land into a thriving garden, blending his passion for sustainable living with innovative composting techniques. What began as a Covid lockdown project to mend fences – literally and figuratively – with his neighbour has evolved into City Soil Lab, a unique composting initiative that turns food waste collected from nearby restaurants into nutrient-rich material. Ussher uses fermentation composting to enrich the garden and to grow herbs and vegetables, which are often on the menu at local high-end restaurants. This example of a closed-loop system is just the start of the project, with other small-scale experiments planned locally. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday | | | | Bored at work? | And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. | | | | | | | | We call the shots on all our stories.
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