Now as I have said many times before I am not a lawyer in any shape or form, and maybe the reports I got were incomplete But I think there was a real fear that the next thing on the agenda was something rather nasty happening to the Premier League, as all the respect it had built up in the rest of the world has just been tied up and dropped overboard. And none of that was helped by the ceaseless use of the phrase “best in the world” from club directors answered by “self-styled best league in the world” from the legal teams.
But now there is something quite different. A new look at the Super League, with no ManC in it, and their relegation down at the very least two divisions, if not more. A four year expulsion from the Football League. A shuffling set of behind hands discussion asking “how the f\*\*\* do we get out of this one?”
Then we have legal action and legal costs which was in fact the first warning that the club issued to the rest of the league, and indeed the media. That was answered by a warning that ManC were closed to being kicked out of the league. Plus a willingness to change the structure of the league so it reflects absolutely the requirements of English law.
In effect the club is just talking lawyer speak – and that from lawyers who have never been to a match in their life. And that doesn’t mean those lawyers can’t understand football, rather it means ManC can’t even conceive of the notion that they might be guilty.
I was told that the rest of the league felt ManC would now cave in. But in fact not a bit. They are fighting and the damage to the whole of football could be huge, and the willingness to admit anything had been done wrong, was below zero. In short: “it was ManC what done it.”
And here;s a thought. Sitting in the wings is Arsène Wenger who created the phrase “financial doping” to describe Roman Abramovich and Chelsea. They laughed at Wenger then…. typical Frenchman not understanding football. Now Mr Wenger speaks as a man who might take over the high chair at Fifa and they are not laughing any more as demands are heard for bans on everyone ever involved in ManC and the Etihad, and for the club be sold..