Student opinion – Thoughts on the financial allegations against Manchester City F.C.

The recent charges of inappropriately using money levied against Manchester City F.C. have rocked the world of soccer and sparked widespread debate about the fairness and transparency of the sport. 

According to the Daily Mail, the English Premiere League charged Manchester City with over 115 violations of financial fair play. The violations specifically target Manchester’s falsification of financial reports. This falsification leads to unknown increased pay or number of managers, trainers or executives. As one of the leading teams in the English Premier League and European soccer, Manchester City’s fall from grace not only affected the club itself, but also other teams like Manchester United and Liverpool, who are now finding out they could have won multiple titles worth millions of euros if it wasn’t for Manchester City’s alleged secretive behavior. 

The charges, according to ESPN FC, center around allegations that Manchester City manipulated their finances in order to circumvent the English Premier League financial fair play rules. This has raised serious questions about the integrity of the sport, leading many fans to question the fairness of the competition.

While the charges against Manchester City may seem shocking, they are not surprising. Over the past decade, the sport of soccer has become increasingly driven by money and commercial interests, with teams spending huge sums on transfer fees and wages in bouts to secure success on the field. This has led to a growing sense of unfairness among fans, who feel the teams with the deepest pockets are often the ones who succeed, regardless of their actual soccer ability. This begs the question: is soccer becoming a financial monopoly? And if so, for what, and who are the people controlling it? 

Manchester City is not unfamiliar to these scandals. Legal documents provided by the Union of European Football Associations show that Manchester City was charged with breaching financial fair play rules back in 2020, which means they illegally used money within the league. 

Now, according to the UEFA, the team did this in order to help it achieve the one trophy it hasn’t been able to win: the UEFA champions league. The association banned Manchester City from ever obtaining this trophy. According to the New York Times, Manchester City actually paid UEFA 10 million euros to have the ban overturned and wipe the record clean. So a team who illegally spent money found more money to pay its way out of a scandal. That scandal itself should make everyone question the legitimacy of UEFA and Manchester City. 

The Manchester City scandal serves as a wake-up call for the sport and highlights the need for greater transparency and accountability in the world of soccer. The English Premier League has its own rules (unlike UEFA), one of them being that teams may not pay their way out of severe charges. Within the Premier League, the minimum consequences mean dropping points in the league while the maximum lead to expulsion for the remainder of the season along with relegation to a lower league and retraction of titles awarded unfairly to them over the last few years. 

The English Premier League will not back down from this as it is known to be the hardest league to be in, on and off the field. It is essential that the sport is governed in a way that ensures all teams can compete on a level playing field and clubs are held accountable for their financial practices.

Diaz is an opinion writer for the Liberty Champion. Follow him on Twitter