We built this City…
As legal battles between the Premier League and Manchester City continue, what does it say about what the game has become?
An extended break between newsletters this time as I’ve also been on holiday, but I’m back to see the news that Sue Gray is to become the new manager of Manchester United. I jest, of course, but not getting to grips with the full facts leads to the news of Manchester City’s apparent “victory” against the Premier League in the court case over associated party transactions (APTs).
I include a link to the judgment here so that you can read what it says, rather than what people say it says, before reading what I say it says. But I defy anyone to read it and conclude there is a clear-cut victory for either side. Apart, that is, for those of us on the side of arguing for an independent regulator.
City’s statement on the matter was pretty bullish in claiming total victory. But most of City’s points were rejected. And what seems to have been the Club’s main aim, to junk the entire APT system, clearly failed.
But this is not a victory for the Premier League either, as the ruling showed it applied its own rules poorly, and in some places broke them. Which makes its continued arguments that it is perfectly capable or regulating itself and that an independent regulator is not needed look even flimsier than they already did. Whether the organisation’s widely reported £100,000 schmoozing operation to convince the Prime Minister and nine colleagues that its argument has some substance succeeds remains to be seen.
City have upped the temperature further by writing to the other 19 Premier League clubs challenging the Premier League’s statement on the case. City’s position is that “the Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules have been found to be unlawful”. If you read the judgment itself, that is clearly not the case. The rules that were unlawful have been found to be unlawful. But the overall principle that APT rules are broadly compatible with competition law is backed.
City’s letter to the clubs reiterates its claim that APT rules have been found to be unlawful, and advises that “this is the time for careful reflection and consideration by all clubs, and not for a kneejerk reaction”. Couple that with the next sentence: “Such an unwise course would be likely to lead to further legal proceedings with further legal costs” and it is easy to see why there is growing concern among clubs about a potential legal onslaught should they continue to take a different position to City.
It is an action that probably has more bearing on the upcoming ‘115 charges’ case than anything in this judgment. City’s owners have already signalled a willingness to outspend everyone in a legal battle, and it is that commitment to legal attrition that is emerging as the notable feature in the latest chapter in the dispute between the club and the league. One wonders if there is any reflection at Premier League towers about how wise it was to allow a member club to be owned by people with infinitely greater resources than the League itself.
And how depressing it is to see so many City fans and City-affiliated fan accounts not only buying in 100% to the club’s attack lines, but actively pushing them. Journalists who have questioned City’s ownership have been abused for years now, and this week saw one independent City account publish a picture of the badges of the clubs who gave evidence against City, urging fans to never forget. And as for that banner lauding the club’s lawyer…
It’s shame for many reasons, not least because City had one of the most respected fanbases in the game because of the numbers that continued to follow the club even when it dropped into the third tier of English football. They supported the club, not the owners, and they knew that while fans don’t get to chose their club’s owner, they can choose whether or not to support them. Sadly, I’ve little doubt that large sections of other fan bases would do similar in similar circumstances – look to the north east of England or the west of London for a start – but it all adds to that feeling of existential crisis.
Attention now turns to the hearing already under way about the 115 charges laid against City by the Premier League. Lots of people think they know what they think but the reality is that few people know the full facts. People have views based on what they would like to believe or on what they think is most likely based on their experience of business and of life. I’m in the latter camp. But I don’t know, just as those City fans loudly shouting that the club has done absolutely nothing wrong don’t know either.
The real danger, perhaps, is that we end up with no one ever really knowing, and are left instead with a lingering feeling that something isn’t right in the state of football, and that that feeling will never go away.
On his SubStack, Henry Winter quotes “a senior club executive” talking about the Premier League’s “terrible failure to lead from the front with winning arguments about what makes English football special and why we need to keep it looking and feeling more like it has for 150 years and less like a courtroom drama and global plaything.”
Or, as I and many others have been saying for years, maybe it is time to remember what makes football the special and successful business it is. But should that all be in the past tense? Have we reached the inevitable conclusion of a journey that started when the Premier League was formed?
Lobbying funnelled through Football Supporters Europe has led to a reduction in price caps on away tickets in UEFA competition. It’s a welcome move, and testament to years of campaigning by fan groups and smart work behind the scenes by FSE, the umbrella body of European fan organisations.
It was reported that Tottenham Hotspur was one of only three clubs to object to the price cap. It’s safe to say that the current regime at Spurs has firmly established its free market credentials when it comes to the issue of price control. So it was not surprising that many chose to believe the report. It wasn’t a good look for Spurs but, in characteristic style, the Club’s PR operation managed to make matters worse – at least retaining a consistency too often missing on the pitch.
It initially refused to comment. There’s no obligation for anyone to comment on anything, and the Spurs board’s approach has long been to ignore anything it doesn’t like until it becomes impossible not to. But the trouble with not providing comment is that it leaves a vacuum into which other narratives move. And they did. Spurs then decided to adopt the next stage of a well-used and invariably disastrous strategy by deploying the Issue Indignant Denial card. It was “factually incorrect”, it protested, to say that the Club had voted against the price cap.
The Club thought it was being smart, but once again it was being too clever by half. Most people pretty quickly clocked on to the fact that the Club had not widely been reported to have voted against anything, but instead to have argued against the measure. And the trouble with responding to an accusation by denying a different accusation is that it makes people more inclined to believe you are actually guilty of the original accusation.
Either the Club believed it was right to argue against the price cap, it which case it should have owned the argument as soon as it was raised and been honest about what it did, or it was falsely accused, in which case it should have said so from the start. Initial refusal to comment followed by the kind of disingenuous wording that is something of a trademark only succeeded in making the Club look shifty as well as greedy.
The sad thing is, few who have observed the current board’s style of operating will be surprised by any of this. Maybe there is a future as a masterclass in how not to do PR.
To round off this time, I recommend this thoughtful piece by Kevin Rye, who I’ve known since his days as a staff member at Supporters Direct. These days Kev is a fan engagement expert and lecturer in football business, and his Think Fan Engagement site is well worth a look. His central point is that “far too many clubs still don’t really know how to incorporate listening into the way they actually operate and make decisions.” Amen to that.