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The Premier League’s independent disciplinary tribunal has found against Manchester City in respect of 114 out of 115 of its alleged breaches of the PL’s rules. That’s all we know. Deeply unsatisfactory, but true. And - although the use of words like “guilty” and “charges” is not correct, and perhaps unhelpfully - if inadvertently - sensationalist (this is not a criminal matter; it’s mainly about spreadsheets) - this is clearly a very serious moment, regardless of the detail that we currently do not, and may never, know. For City most of all, sure, but also for the PL, and for football more widely.
We do not know if there will be an appeal. City have said they intend to file one. City say a lot though, not all of it true, which is kind of why we are where we are. Anyway, flippancy aside, without knowing the tribunal’s reasoning, we cannot know what the basis of such an appeal would be. Right now, City will be reading the judgment and their lawyers will be advising, confidentially and under legal privilege (as should be the case), on whether they think an appeal should be pursued and, if so, on what grounds.
I suspect there probably will be one anyway, for three reasons. One: having come this far, City might as well keep going. Two: they can try to use the existence of the appeal to argue for the postponement (or “stay”) of any sanctions - see below. Indeed, there may be more value in that to City, than in the appeal itself (which will be an uphill battle, as appeals tend to be - they are not re-trials). Three: without an appeal on the table, there is little scope for further negotiation between City and the PL. With one in place, the sides may thrash something out which is preferable to the uncertainty of waiting for the appeal board to decide, and some dirty washing might remain blissfully un-aired.
We do not know whether the filing of an appeal would have the effect of suspending any sanction that the tribunal would want to impose. Often, an appellant would seek this - the legal test here is that, in order to suspend a sanction, the appellant must show that if the sanction is immediately applied but the appeal is successful, then the harm caused by the imposition of the sanction cannot be reversed. I can see that the effect of an immediate transfer ban or a points deduction would be hard to reverse if City were to win an appeal. Less obvious that this would be the case with a fine (they could just be reimbursed) or the stripping of titles (they could just be re-awarded).
As to the sanctions themselves, we do not know what they are likely to be.
Though we have not seen the judgment or the reasoning behind it, it is safe to say there is no precedent in PL history for financial misconduct on this industrial a scale. In any event, the panel would not be bound by previous judgments, nor does the PL rulebook contain a formula for deciding what sanction is to be imposed in a given case. Everything is on the table. It must be remembered, though, that the decision is being made by an independent panel, not by the PL itself. There has been some loose talk, over recent days, of what punishment the PL might impose and why. For example: has the league been so captured by the Big Six that City will only get a slap on the wrist? Or is the league so angry at what has happened that they will throw the book at City and expel them from the competition? This framing is wrong. The PL will not decide. They will make submissions at a sanctions hearing, and City will do likewise, but the decision will be taken by the panel on the basis of what they consider to be commensurate to the degree of wrongdoing, not what they consider to be best for the PL’s brand. We are long past the stage where the headmaster is deciding how to punish the unruly pupil. The panel comprises two senior lawyers and a financial expert, appointed by Murray Rosen KC, a highly eminent arbitrator and sports law specialist with 50 years’ legal experience. The panel will not be doing the PL’s bidding. Or City’s. We do not know who is on the panel - this has been rightly and deliberately kept confidential (indeed, given the mad direction that football has gone in, with lawyers not being immune to the passions of supporters, I’d actually be concerned if that were not the case) - but what can be said with some comfort is that they will be credible - and rich - enough, not to allow that independence to be compromised.
For what it is worth, I would expect the PL - in its submissions - to push for the harshest possible sanctions. The PL, not unlike the country which hosts it, is a honeypot for dodgy global capital. It has grown fat by welcoming anyone, from anywhere, with cash, and not asking too many questions about where the cash came from. Including, of course our paymasters in Riyadh. In order for the PL to remain attractive, it needs to enforce - and be seen to enforce - its rules. Nobody wants to launder money in a machine with a dirty drum. But, as above, the headmaster is not deciding the punishment here: to follow that metaphor through, it’s the school governors, or Ofsted, or the local authority which is deciding (I wouldn’t know, I never misbehaved at school. Obviously.)
My personal view is that I would expect the panel to avoid reallocating trophies or points in previous seasons. Unlike, say, the use of performance-enhancing drugs, where scientific evidence can point to and even quantify the direct benefit to the athlete of having taken the banned substance, financial irregularity is less obviously the direct, proximate cause of particular goals being scored or matches being won. Football as a sport, in any case, does not lend itself easily to that kind of counterfactual exercise, even if informed (as it would potentially be) by expert evidence from Opta or a similar company. Indeed, even if the panel is inclined to strip City of honours as a reaction to the seriousness of their transgressions, it would not automatically follow that another club would formally be awarded those titles. We as fans can quite easily engage in counterfactuals of that nature, and we are of course free - indeed we are already free, the panel has no jurisdiction over you or I - to do so. I suspect the panel will want to avoid a situation where the courtroom becomes the place where goals are scored, games won and points awarded - especially if it does not even need to engage in such a fiendishly tricky exercise in order to decide the appropriate sanctions to be applied to City (which is the situation - remember that, for all the wider interest which exists in this case, it is still a confidential process between the PL and City only. Nobody else). I do not expect open top bus parades on Merseyside, in North London, or in Stretford. I expect this will frustrate, and leave a feeling of dissatisfaction among many.
Over a thousand words there, to essentially say that for everything we know, there is an awful lot more we do not.
All a bit unsatisfactory. Empty, even. But then, when the real action in Big Football takes place in air-conditioned meeting rooms and not on the pitch, this can no longer come as a surprise.
**YOUSEF HATEM**
_(Image: Arne Museler, via Creative Commons)_