Former Manchester City striker Paul Dickov visited a number of supporter club branches this week with OSC general secretary Kevin Parker
Reddish OSC secretary Howard Burr, Paul Dickov, and Manchester City OSC general secretary Kevin Parker
Reddish OSC secretary Howard Burr, Paul Dickov, and Manchester City OSC general secretary Kevin Parker
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Paul Dickov has history of rescuing Manchester City from dire situations. It was his injury-time equaliser that helped the club complete an improbable comeback against Gillingham in 1999 to climb out of League One, and his number that Pep Guardiola promised to ring if the club were sent back there as a result of the charges.
Dickov jokes that he has dusted off his boots, but there is little humour - other than gallows - for Blues to have at the minute after news that an independent panel has found them guilty of everything serious the Premier League accused them of. From disguising more than £900m of equity as sponsorship right down to refusing to co-operate with the investigation, City are on the hook for everything and all manner of punishments are on the table.
The club are appealing, and both chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak and Ferran Soriano have released messages to convey the insistence among City leaders that they will ultimately be found innocent based on the "irrefutable evidence" to support their claim. A three-man panel of experts has already rejected that, yet City insist the decision will be overturned just as it was six years ago when the Court of Arbitration reversed UEFA's call to ban them from the Champions League.
It has been a difficult time for supporters, especially with so little evidence still in the public domain as the ongoing process remains confidential. A 40-page decision from the panel was damning of the club, but also heavily redacted and its explanations were unpublished.
At the same time, the fans and the club they love have been damned in the court of public opinion with supporters from other clubs and some in the media trying to tell Blues how they should be feeling or what they should be doing. Aside from there not being a textbook response for such a difficult topic, they are being asked to comment on a situation that they still don't know much about.
City insist it is business as usual, and that means that a planned visit to four local supporters clubs with Dickov in attendance to donate a shirt signed by the squad went ahead this week. It was felt in summer with so much change at the Etihad that the local supporter clubs deserved a token of the club's appreciation for their loyalty, and no guilty verdicts or damning reports were going to stop that.
Manchester City OSC general secretary Kevin Parker, Marple Blues chair Trevor Smith, and Paul Dickov
Manchester City OSC general secretary Kevin Parker, Marple Blues chair Trevor Smith, and Paul Dickov
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Dickov has just posed for photos in a pub in Bredbury with that branch of the supporters club when he stops to acknowledge the situation as he sees it. He hasn't really spoken about the issue up to this point despite many requests, and doesn't feel there is much to add.
"There's a cloud [over the club]. I've had a lot of people want me to speak to them, and I don't really know what to say. Until the verdicts are made and sanctions are made, nobody really knows what's going on. There's a lot of big voices out there at the minute who are making big statements without actually knowing what the outcome is going to be," he told the Manchester Evening News.
"Personally, I've not got a clue. I don't think anybody does you know and until that point I don't think there's an awful lot you can say. One thing we've always done, especially recently, is believe in the owners and believe in the fantastic things they've done for the club. We can only go along with that until the verdict is made and sanctions are made or whatever the outcome is going to be.
"You've got to believe Ferran and what the chairman has come out with in his statement. You look at social media, you look at the news, and sometimes you look at it and you don't know what to believe, but we can only take confidence in what the owners have done for the club since they've come in.
"Some of the stuff they've done is unbelievable. You know, the regeneration around the stadium, the time for the community. It's getting overlooked at the minute, and I get it and I understand it. But as I said, until we actually know what's going on it's just really difficult to comment on."
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