Luke Stone

Guilty, guilty, sham and shame. How on earth can Manchester City appeal a verdict as devastating and damning as the one passed down by the independent commission investigating breaches of financial regulations? City will appeal, of course, and it’s their right under Premier League rules. They clearly will appeal, claiming the verdict is “unsafe” but they are surely simply delaying the inevitable punishment, making themselves even more unpopular, damaging their club and the game further. For justice to truly prevail in this case, punishment has to be swift. For City to start the long journey back on the road to redemption, they have to take their medicine. These are dark days in the history of the Premier League and they are darkest at the Etihad. City's owners have to see the light, accept their guilt and begin the process of rehabilitation. An appeal involving deny, deny, delay, delay, shreds any sporting integrity this season has. The thought of this taking years to resolve – doubtless via the High Court - feels potentially ruinous, certainly deeply damaging, for the sport. How many people will be turned off by a league stained by a constantly updated asterix, by a sport effectively run by lawyers. City have to take their medicine now. For sporting competitions to survive and thrive, there has to be a willingness on all parties to play fair on and off the field. That may sound naive, an outdated purist principle, but it matters to many. A few engaged in the game will take short-cuts but one of the reasons why the Premier League is so followed around the world is because of the perception of its essential honesty. Players give everything from first minute to last. Promoted teams can occasionally trouble the established order. But industrial-level cooking of the books highlighted in the independent commission’s report, effectively allowing City, regular champions, to spend more on players will shake confidence in the competition. City’s owners have to think very carefully, not least about their own and their famous club’s reputational damage. Read the room. Read the statement. How can they possibly answer the powerful, damning language used in detailing the offences devised to circumvent FFP. Others were playing by the rules, City were bending them, the commission found. City fans can argue that FFP/PSR/SCR rules are anti-competitive, and protect the “cartel” as they see it, but City signed up to the rules. And, then, in the words of the Premier League CEO Richard Masters, “systematically broke” those rules for “nearly a decade”. Masters deserves to feel vindicated for his quiet, firm leadership of the league in this long, tense case against such a wealthy, self-confident member. Many of the 40 pages of findings in the "core decision" contain blow after blow to City. If the Premier League versus Manchester City were a boxing bout, the referee would have stepped in. “Sham contracts”, “misstated accounts”, “concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators”. “Egregious acts of non-cooperation”. Basically, deception writ large. A phrase that will now pass into the annals of footballing infamy is the “Disguised Funding Scheme” whereby companies “were only required to pay a portion of the relevant sponsorship fees. The remainder was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd”. ADUG. City’s owners. The “Disguised Funding Scheme” basically overstated sponsorship income by £830.69m. A staggering amount. This is now not about Manchester City the club, but Manchester City the ownership, including the chief executive Ferran Soriano. They have to stop embarrassing the club and the sport. They have to stop letting down their fans. City’s owners have to consider the relentless abuse coming the way of fans, players and coaching staff in games to come, starting when entering what will be a bear-pit at Anfield on October 11. Soriano, assuming he attends, can expect a particularly uncomfortable afternoon in his seat and in the Liverpool boardroom. It’s hard to see how he keeps his job – if City’s appeal fails. Fit and proper person? In continuing to protest their innocence, City claim they have “irrefutable evidence” to defend themselves. If so, why weren’t three independent judges persuaded? City have had long enough, employed exceptional briefs, and still lost. Having been found guilty of doing the wrong thing, City now have to do the right thing and that is accept the inevitability of sanctions and seek some form of settlement with the Premier League. They will not, of course: too proud, too defiant, still too convinced of their innocence despite the weight of this report. They will become outcasts even without yet being cast out. That is to come. City's owners have to acknowledge the impact their activities had on other clubs, and accept the considerable compensation claims flooding their way from other clubs they pipped to trophies, possibly even from players. If they’re sensible they will look for a settlement that includes substantial compensation, running into hundreds of millions of pounds, to aggrieved clubs who missed out on trophies, on prize money. Maybe that £830.69m should be the figure considered in any settlement. Fitting. City's owners have to see sense. The alternative is years and fortunes spent in the courts. Nobody wins. Except the lawyers. Football loses, because the game remains on hold until City are punished.