Sometimes you have to laugh at the sheer audacity of it all from Manchester City.
With 115 charges of breaching financial regulations still hanging over them, the Etihad Stadium outfit then had the gall to threaten legal action against the Premier League over the division’s rules regarding valuations of sponsorships in a scarcely believable move on Tuesday.
In light of that bombshell news, their chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak has complained about the ‘frustration’ of the on-field achievements of Pep Guardiola’s side not receiving the wider credit that he feels they deserve.
Last month, City became the first team in English football history to win four top-flight titles in a row, and the 48-year-old has taken a swipe at Liverpool and the other three clubs who previously stood on the brink of that feat.
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As per Liverpool Echo, he said: “You know, we have to sometimes pause and contextualise. Since 1926, five teams have attempted to win four times in a row. Five teams. Huddersfield, Arsenal, you had Liverpool in the 80s and then you had Manchester United attempted it twice. None of them succeeded.
“In over 100 years of English football, never has any team been able to achieve four championships in a row. So once that sinks in, you start really appreciating the magnitude of what was achieved – the difficulty, the challenge, the tenacity required.”
Is Al-Mubarak actually serious here? Has he completely lost (or failed to gain in the first place) any ability to read the room?
Yes, Guardiola and the players responsible for the four consecutive league titles deserve credit for the efforts they put in on the pitch, but the spectre of those 115 charges and the utter brazenness of threatening legal action against the Premier League will invariably cloud that achievement.
If City are so certain of their innocence – something they’ve maintained all along – why did they feel the need to proclaim that they were discriminated against by the division’s Associated Party Transaction rules? Why are they spouting nonsense about the ‘tyranny of the majority‘ as if the team which has won six of the last seven league titles is viciously oppressed?
It’s laughable – contemptible, actually – that the club feel justified in behaving like this when they’re already in the dock over serious financial breaches, for which they’ve yet to be punished while the likes of Everton and Nottingham Forest couldn’t be hit with points deductions quickly enough.
Maybe those fans of other clubs who begged City to pip Liverpool to the Premier League title in 2019 and 2022 in order to ‘save football’ might be undertaking some revisionism about their stance, in light of how Al-Mubarak and co are conducting their business.
Haha, they’re feeling the heat, although I don’t think anything will come out of those 115 charges…unless someone in the PL or FA has turned down the bribes and they feel it could go bad fir them. They always buy their way out of everything. This applies to the whole world, not just city. The poor foolows the rules and the law, the rich break them and find loopholes to get out of jail or buy their freedom!
So true. Next we have to look at the referees who officiate games in the Arab league and are paid by Premier League clubs.
I.
If LFC suddenly found that they were losing money through no fault of there own,would you expect them to accept the leagues new ruling,or would you expect them to fight it?
it just means so much more
Listening to all you liverpool fans constantly talk about how great klopp and the whole team is you would think yall won more than 1 league title this whole time both coaches have been there…No doubt they were a good team but really 1 great season…..So everyone looking for excuses to take City down for years,not just the premiere league, the champ league tried to but at least someone had some brains knowing you can’t trust information conveniently hacked to say just what u wanted it to.
Just a little reminder Liverpool have not just one one Legue title, we actually have 19 yer bellend.
The only way to deal with them is for every club in the PL refuse to play them and forfeit every game 3-0.
Yes they win the league but will never play – get the best players in then and cook the books as no one attends the games and sponsors pull out
Job done
You need to realise this is all about saving face. I have worked in Kuwait for a number of years. Guilty or not it’s about macho as we would say. You go back in history and the Arabia is Trimble and still is.
Am a big Liverpool supporter and it was a tremendous achievement by City to will 4 league’s on the trot with a tremendous team, but if they have committed all these charges then the players they bought should not have been there for them to do it. I feel if charges brought against them are true and found guilty what about the teams that were relegated, can see big law suits brought against City, and they should lose all titles won, which we all know won’t happen as the FA do not have the guts to do.
Matthew Allen is Absolutely Right about FFP cheats Man City the owner is a complete disgrace and a first class cheat who has failed to understand the seriousness of the rules He has broken and this idiot has the cheek to take legal action against PL well this action actually proves city are guilty of 115 charges simple
A foreign owner buys into the ENGLISH premier league and refuses to comply with the rules he doesn’t like.
Imagine a British person going to the UAE and telling them how to run things. That person would be expelled or possibly arrested.
No respect for this country, its history or traditions of fair play.
The sheer arrogance these Gulf state rulers have is astounding.
They think everyone is beneath them in their minds. That includes American owners of football clubs.