The story of Manchester City’s conviction for breaching Premier League rules and European football’s Financial Fair Play regulations continues to make waves.
Its effects now appear to be seeping into the geopolitical arena, and into relations between the United Arab Emirates and Britain.
As a reminder, last week an independent panel, appointed in 2020 at the Premier League’s request to examine City’s finances between 2013 and 2018, found the club guilty on 114 counts. The charges included falsifying records, deception, concealment and breaches of Premier League and Financial Fair Play rules, in connection with the injection of enormous sums, roughly £900 million, into the club’s coffers. According to the charges, the money came in part from the private pockets of the Al Nahyan family of Abu Dhabi, one of whose members, Sheikh Mansour, has owned the English club since 2008.
The legal side of the story is fascinating, but its interpretation is fairly clear. The independent panel’s ruling left no room for doubt. City are guilty and, as expected, have announced that they will appeal, which will push the resolution back by a considerable time.
During the period examined by the panel, City won three league titles, one FA Cup and three League Cups, which makes the panel’s decision especially dramatic in terms of both achievement and history. How should those triumphs be judged and remembered? And what of the legacy of this Manchester City?
“Manchester City should be punished, and severely,” said Canada head coach Jesse Marsch, who managed in the Premier League several years ago. “They should be relegated. And by the way, everybody knew this is what they were doing. Everybody knew.”
As the criticism piles up and City prepare to defend their name, the affair also appears to be opening a crack in relations between the UAE and Britain.
Investment in infrastructure and energy over a football club’s conviction?
It began small. Last Thursday, Etihad Airways, the UAE’s national airline, City’s sponsor and the company after which the stadium is named, announced that it intends to sue the Premier League for damaging the company’s good name. The matter of reputation is an interesting one, since countless people have seen their good names damaged in this saga, and it is far from certain that Etihad Airways is at the end of the queue.
Over the past weekend, Emirati officials passed messages through the British media, in what were described as “threats”. If the Premier League decides to harm the club, they warned, it could halt further Emirati investment in the United Kingdom.
It is important to understand the context. Economic ties between Britain and the UAE stretch back decades, to the discovery of oil in the Gulf state. Through them, large amounts of Emirati capital have flowed into Britain, leading to investment, job creation and long-term business relationships.
In 2021, the two countries established the UAE-UK Sovereign Investment Partnership, under which the Emirates pledged to invest £10 billion within five years in areas such as technology, infrastructure, healthcare and clean energy.
Since the partnership was established, the Emiratis have invested roughly £30 billion in Britain, mainly through Mubadala, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, which is chaired by Khaldoon Al Mubarak, City’s chairman and its most powerful figure. In 2013, Al Mubarak received a Commander of the Order of the British Empire from the Crown in recognition of his business contribution to investment in Britain and his work as head of Mubadala. Two days before the verdict against City’s finances was published, Al Mubarak reportedly met in London with Jonathan Reynolds, the UK’s Business Secretary, a sign of just how high up this story reaches.
While the British see Emirati investment in the country as separate from the ownership of the Manchester club, the view in the Gulf is different. Officials in Abu Dhabi close to Al Mubarak confirmed to BabaGol that Mubadala and the Al Nahyan family are watching how events unfold, and did not rule out a change in policy regarding Emirati investment in Britain.
“The family’s investment in the city of Manchester and in Britain as a whole goes far beyond football,” explains an Emirati source who worked at one of the football clubs owned by the Al Nahyan family as part of City Football Group, and who asked to remain anonymous. “Besides building a global football brand, they saved British banks from collapse (a reference to Barclays), created thousands of jobs for the city’s residents and rebuilt neighborhoods in east Manchester. From the Emirati perspective, this story feels like persecution. The league (the Premier League) needs to understand that there could be consequences if they take this all the way.”
Is this part of a bigger campaign?
Emirati ownership of Manchester City is a symbol of the huge Gulf investment in the United Kingdom, but the saga of City’s flawed financial conduct could develop into a much larger Pandora’s box.
If this is how things stand at City, then closer scrutiny is also warranted at Saudi-owned Newcastle United, and at every club owned by American billionaires. If it works in Britain, perhaps the French will also move to examine the books of Paris Saint-Germain. There, though, the challenge is greater, since the club is chaired by Nasser Al-Khelaifi, who is also president of the European Club Association and one of the most powerful people in world football.
Several scenarios could unfold, and the unequivocal, aggressive wording of the verdict makes it hard to see how City will emerge from this without punishment. Relegation, a massive points deduction and perhaps even the stripping of the titles they won are all on the table. The story is far from over, but we may be witnessing the first battle in a war over state ownership of clubs in European football. Does that mean the era will necessarily end? Not at all.
“I have a lot to say to you, so that you know how confident we are in our position,” wrote Khaldoon Al Mubarak, City’s Emirati chairman for the past 18 years, in a letter to supporters. “But the strict confidentiality of the legal process does not allow it at this time, and we want to respect the process.”
“The League’s entire case against us rests on one mistaken accusation,” said Ferran Soriano, City’s chief executive, in a video the club released to supporters.
“I want every City fan to know that I am here. More than ever, I am here. I will always stand behind my club… we will get through this together,” Pep Guardiola posted after the verdict was published.
Al Mubarak and Soriano can issue statements as they please, and Pep is entitled to express solidarity with the fans, but the damage to the reputation, legacy and story of everyone who took part in the club over the past decade and a half, and beyond, is enormous. That includes the legacy of the players, of Guardiola as a manager, of the club, and of the Premier League as a competitive league and sporting platform.
But with all due respect to the players, the staff and the Premier League, the ones who are really suffering now are Manchester City’s fans. These are the people who stood by the club in the lower leagues, when it was a likable side that was easy to love for its underdog status, yet one that bounced between divisions and lived on nostalgia for trophies won decades earlier. With disproportionate amounts of money, as noted, it became one of Europe’s giants. Now many of them realize that those achievements were reached by means that were not quite sporting, and that the enormous moments of joy they experienced were plastic to the point of forgery. That must surely be heartbreaking.
Perhaps this is the price paid by fans who welcome state ownership with open arms into a club they love. What is certain is that the saga of City’s conviction is only the first stage, the opening battle if you will, in what may become a larger war against state ownership in European football. It may also mark a new chapter in how Britain and the countries of Europe deal with Gulf investment in sport, and perhaps beyond.
The article was first published in Haaretz.
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