You can stick your asterisks up your arse!
After an unprecedented fortnight of vile, vicious, venomous vitriol, Manchester City fans could be forgiven for not knowing if they’re having a shit, shave, shower or a haircut – such has been the levels of sheer hatred directed towards them and their club.
The abuse from a gloating mass media, rival fans and keyboard warriors following the guilty verdicts – as handed down by an ‘Independent Commission’ – on 114 charges of breaking the Premier League’s financial rules, is unparalleled in English football.
A relentless cacophony is surely a precursor to off the scale punishments when City’s appeal – already presumed as doomed to failure – goes the same way as the IC’s findings of overwhelming guilt.
It’s the Red Cartel’s dream that their Premier League Executive puppets have finally, seemingly, crippled the City hierarchy of Chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak & Co, after years of serial cheating allegations.
However, dreams can soon turn into nightmares.
Underestimating a foe as formidable as Khaldoon can come with catastrophic consequences – it’s all about timing.
Khaldoon is a towering figure in a world which far transcends football. He sits at the intersection of sovereign wealth, corporate investment, geopolitics, technology and international diplomacy.
He’s the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Mubadala Investment Company – a global enterprise with $385bn Assets Under Management. He’s Chairman of the Emirates Nuclear Energy Company, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Emirates Global Aluminium and a board member of The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
Characterized as one of the Abu Dhabi royal family’s most trusted advisors, he was the UAE’s first Presidential Special Envoy to China. He’s a sophisticated individual, strategically important, hyperintelligent – a master of many trades – a man whose reputation and integrity are everything.
He has put all of this, and more, on the line in his stoical defence of Manchester City, with his repeated claims of an ‘irrefutable body of evidence’ which clears City of any wrongdoing.
With the world and his wife lined up against City, it takes someone with the proverbial balls of steel to stand defiant in the belief that, against all the odds, they will eventually emerge victorious. Khaldoon is such a man.
One of the most famous poems in the English language can aptly be applied to City’s beleaguered Chairman in these troubled times. Written in 1895, Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If – ‘contains passages which sit well in describing Al Mubarak’s present day predicament:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
…
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
The moral of Kipling’s words are that true maturity, success, and personal strength come from mastering emotional self-control, resilience, patience and quiet integrity.
Align those sentiments to City’s statement regarding the Premier League and IC’s actions: ‘The Club has diligently respected due process for eight years on the basis that the Premier League Board and Executive would behave as an independent, impartial and fair-minded regulator, free from partisan influence.”
Effectively Khaldoon and City have been biding their time, keeping their powder dry and giving the kangaroo court of the IC enough rope with which to hang itself.
There will be many people – City fans included – who question what might be seen as blind faith in Khaldoon.
It’s nothing of the sort. It’s trust, born of confidence in the honesty, reliability, intelligence and character of the man.
He, the Club, the fans, Sheikh Mansour and – to some degree – the Abu Dhabi Government, are having to endure an absolute shit storm of dog’s abuse, but it could conceivably be part of a masterplan, yet to be revealed.
Obviously having the Club’s reputation trashed – even if it turns out to be only temporarily – is far from desirable, but it might be a case of short-term pain for long term gain.
City are of the opinion – one shared by their fans and supporters of other clubs – that the Premier League has, for far too long, been manipulated by the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal.
Khaldoon has previously stated: “I’ll not accept for this club to be used as a diversionary tactic on poor investment from other clubs. People make decisions, they’ve got to live by them. We’ve managed ourselves well and we’ll be judged by the facts.”
He remains steadfast that the ‘facts’ will ultimately exonerate City.
The reality is this is only likely to happen – if it is to happen at all – in a bona fide court of law, well outside the dubious jurisdiction of the Premier League, the regulatory framework of football in this country and 'opinions' of less than impartial, so-called ‘independent’ commissions.
The latest process was so impartial and unbiased, that Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs were leaked news of the 114 guilty verdicts ahead of the publication of the 40-page judgement.
This would be the same quartet who, in September 2024, instructed legal counsel to give notice to City that they reserved the right to seek compensation in the event of City being found guilty.
They did so individually, but in each case, just in time before a six-year notice limit was due to expire.
Pure coincidence? How about collusion with the Premier League based on self-preservation and mutual interest.
The timing of the IC’s verdicts is also open to question. Having concluded a 12-week hearing in December 2024, it took 21 months for them to be announced.
Premier League rules require prompt decision-making public publication of final outcomes, ‘…as soon as practicable.’
Notwithstanding the complexity of City’s case, 21 months is a very long time, especially when the IC decided it was a slam dunk of guilt all round.
In their judgement it must’ve been black and white, so why the delay, there wouldn’t appear to have been any grey areas?
If City are to overturn the guilty verdicts and instigate a deeper analysis of the legal legitimacy of the Premier League’s rules on competition law, it can only come in the High Court.
The Premier League and its shady processes cannot be trusted. Any outcomes must come from a higher burden of evidential proof, from a legitimate legal entity, from a body that doesn’t tip its mates off in advance, or load the scales of justice from the get-go.
Are we to believe – as the IC would have us believe - that Sheikh Mansour was oblivious to the thick end of £830.69m being syphoned off into ‘sham’ sponsorship deals for City?
Yes, he’s worth a few bob, but you’d expect a man of his intellect and standing to wonder where he left nearly a billion quid lying around? It's inconceivable that City would generate only £119.25m in genuine sponsorship over the nine year period in question. That's an average of just £13.25m per season, three of which they won the Premier League.
The IC’s redacted passage – presumably related to Sheikh Mansour – reads:
‘There was no direct evidence that (REDACTED) was aware of the Disguised Funding Scheme or authorized the operation of the Disguised Funding Scheme. We therefore concluded that the Disguised Funding Scheme was operated without (REDACTED’S) knowledge.’
If the spineless IC was seeking to try and avoid an international incident by not ‘incriminating’ a key member of the Abu Dhabi Royal Family and Government, it looks like it failed.
By describing City’s contracts with key sponsors such as Etihad Airways as ‘sham deals’, the IC has strayed into dangerous legal waters.
In English law for a contract to be described as a ‘sham’ means both parties shared the intention to create a false impression of the parties’ real legal rights and obligations.
Etihad Airways are now looking at a corporate defamation action against the Premier League. If this goes to the High Court, Etihad Airways could show the sponsorship deals were genuine and, in so doing, wipe out the findings of the IC.
There’s also the matter of the trail of bank transfers, payments and authorisations which City claim show any top up payments for sponsorships came from the Abu Dhabi Government, and not Sheikh Mansour’s privately owned ADUG company.
City’s defence rests on these critical elements being scrutinized and ruled upon in a bona fide court of law – free from bias by a truly impartial judicial body.
It’s a high-stakes strategy, but one that makes sense if Khaldoon wants to put an end to what City see as a witch hunt by the Red Cartel and other Premier League clubs – clubs who are desperate to have City damaged beyond repair.
It’s targeted harassment which goes all the way back to the moment Sheikh Mansour and his Abu Dhabu United Group company bought City in 2008.
It was bad enough for the reds when Roman Abramovich rolled into Chelsea in 2003 and threatened their stranglehold on the top three places in the Premier League. The fact UEFA increased England’s Champions League places to four, meant the cartel could just about tolerate the situation.
But it was all too much when ADUG showed up with deep, Dirham-filled pockets and Champions League aspirations. The simple math of five into four wouldn’t go, and the clear and existential threat to the red monopoly was totally unacceptable.
Hence the creation of Financial Fair Play (FFP) - later Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) - fiscal regulations to preclude any clubs with ‘new’ money from challenging for the top honours.
Of course, the Premier League and UEFA dressed it up as a mechanism to stop nefarious owners from asset-stripping and the ruination of clubs.
Looking back, it’s incredible to see how clubs signed up – almost Lemming like – for the new regulations. There are regrets aplenty in the modern day, just ask fans of Aston Villa and Newcastle United for starters.
Speaking in 2016, Richard Scudamore, the then Premier League executive chairman, said the PL had a strategic plan to put a new name on their trophy in every six-year period.
It coincided with Pep Guardiola’s arrival at City.
Strange how Scudamore and his cronies – both his contemporaries and successors – never uttered similar sentiments when Ferguson’s United and Wenger’s Arsenal, were carving up the league, free from any financial constraints.
For now City are the pariahs of English – probably European – football, tainted and taunted by virtue of flawed and biased processes, supported by a media hellbent on inciting ever more trauma and trouble for a team and its fans who had – and still have the temerity – to wreck the Red Cartel.
That work continues at a den of iniquity called Anfield, where Enzo Marseca, his team and City supporters must adopt a siege mentality and shove it up the collective uberkunts of Carragher, Neville, Keown, Ferdinand et al.
As for title stripping, multiple relegations, mammoth fines and sticking asterisks all over the record books, that can go on the back burner as Lord David Pannick KC leads City's legal fightback..
by David Walker
‘X’ @ReadButNeverRed @djwskyblu
Bluesky @djwskyblu.bsky.social
You are 100% right on all counts great article. One thing that sticks out like a sore thumb is the protectiinst premiship policy for the red cartel, just can't understand the fans of the other teams. Saw a very good article by a West Ham fan saying the same thing. One day these clubs could have owners like us and be able to dream.
Nice report...my personal feelings are that this is less to do with football and more about the Americans wanting to profit from their investments in the PL.
I doubt, as stated, that this will be sorted at PL level but in the High Court. The Americans, remember, own sky sports and a lot of the media, some of the others are led by red cartel sympathisers. I consider the leaks are designed to allow a hysterical reaction to make us look bad in the court of public opinion before the matter is concluded. This alleged chaos, caused by the media, will be used to try to bring in NFL style governance (already subtly mentioned in Sky Sports reports) allowing wage…
Excellent summary. We have to beat the scouse b@st@rds tomorrow! By the way, you missed the word sideways from the title 😜
Exceptional summary David this needs to be seen far & wide! Keep up the good work! Up the Blues
The fat lady hasn’t even cleared her throat yet aka there’s a long way to go and yet the way the media and the great unwashed are baying for blue blood is sickening to behold. I believe in our chairman and that we will prevail. Such a tough time for young fans such as my grandkids being harassed and called cheats it’s them I feel for whereas myself nah water off a ducks back!