Latest Opinion

Well, well, well. After years of hearings, lawyers, accountants, leaked documents, legal submissions and enough paperwork to fill the Etihad twice over, Manchester City have apparently discovered something rather extraordinary: rules matter.

According to reports, an independent commission has found Manchester City guilty of all but one of the 115 alleged breaches of Premier League financial regulations. The sanctions have not yet been decided, and City are expected to appeal. The club continues to insist that the process is ongoing and that it has done nothing wrong.




So technically, this isn't the end. Which is fortunate, because Manchester City have spent rather a long time explaining that everything is perfectly fine, and it would be terribly rude to interrupt them before the final instalment.

From a West Ham United perspective, however, the whole affair has become rather awkward. Not morally awkward, necessarily. West Ham supporters abandoned expectations of morality from football sometime around the invention of the transfer window.

It's more the sort of awkwardness you feel when a neighbour who has spent 15 years claiming that his swimming pool was financed by selling homemade jam is visited by the Inland Revenue. You don't accuse him of anything. You put the kettle on.

The remarkable thing about the Manchester City story isn't that football has money in it. We've known that for years. Nor is it surprising that rich owners can transform a football club. West Ham have watched that particular experiment from the sidelines, usually while somebody explains that the club is being run according to a "long-term strategy".

The remarkable thing is the scale.

The Premier League referred City to an independent commission in February 2023 after a four-year investigation. The allegations cover more than a decade and include claims concerning financial information, sponsorship revenue, profitability and sustainability rules, player and manager remuneration and cooperation with the league. More than 80 of the charges concern alleged failures to provide accurate information or cooperate with the investigation.

This isn't forgetting to put the receipt for a sandwich in the accounts. It is football's equivalent of opening the cupboard under the stairs and discovering that the cupboard is actually an international banking system.

West Ham, meanwhile, have always approached football finances in the traditional English manner. We have a budget, exceed it, buy somebody, discover somebody else has bought somebody, announce that we're "working hard behind the scenes" and emerge from the transfer window with a squad that leaves everyone wondering what happened.

City appear to have taken a more sophisticated approach. They had lawyers. We had Tim Steidten.

At West Ham, financial planning occasionally means discovering that you've bought a player for £30million and then wondering whether anyone remembered to order a replacement for the player who left for £32million. At Manchester City, the argument concerns an alleged network of financial arrangements extending over several seasons and involving some of the largest commercial revenues in European football.




You might almost say we have different accountants. Then there is the small matter of 115 charges.

At West Ham, if someone announced that the club was facing 115 charges, I'd assume we'd accidentally bought a railway company. One hundred and fifteen isn't a disciplinary problem; it's a second career. You could start reading the charge sheet on Monday and by Wednesday, someone would have scored against you.

The timescale has been equally impressive. The hearing began in September 2024 and concluded in December that year, with the verdict apparently now reached but the process still subject to further stages and an expected appeal.

A West Ham fan could have experienced three managers, two relegations, a promotion and four transfer windows in the time it has taken to establish whether Manchester City correctly filled in a spreadsheet.

City, naturally, have always maintained their innocence. Quite right. You don't expect a football club in trouble to issue a statement saying, "Actually, you've got us. Splendid work, everyone. We'll be down the Jobcentre tomorrow."

They will appeal, challenge the findings and employ lawyers. The legal process isn't finished, the sanctions haven't been determined and the reported findings aren't the final word. But there is a particular amusement for supporters of clubs who have spent years operating under the assumption that financial regulations actually mean something.

Everton were docked points. Nottingham Forest were docked points. Other clubs have had to sell players, balance their books and make difficult decisions because football's financial rules exist to restrict what clubs can spend and how they account for it. And then there is Manchester City.

The club has won eight Premier League titles since Sheikh Mansour's 2008 takeover, along with the Champions League, FA Cups and League Cups. Seven of those league titles came during the period covered by the Premier League's allegations.

That leaves English football with an awkward question: if the findings survive the appeal process, what exactly are we supposed to make of the trophies? This is where the West Ham supporter attempts philosophy, although we are not naturally equipped for it.

Trophies are funny things. You win them and they become history; you lose them and they become statistics. You spend an enormous amount of money and everyone calls it a dynasty. You potentially win them while breaching financial regulations and suddenly everyone wants to discuss accounting standards.




For years, Manchester City have been presented as the modern model of footballing perfection: brilliant manager, brilliant players, brilliant recruitment, brilliant academy, brilliant tactics and brilliant infrastructure. They even managed to make defending look like an academic discipline.

Meanwhile, West Ham supporters have spent much of the same period asking why our left-back is standing somewhere near Guildford.

There was always something faintly irritating about City's perfection. Not because they were successful; West Ham supporters can cope with other people winning things. We've had considerable practice. The irritation came from the accompanying certainty that everything had been done properly.

This wasn't merely a rich club buying success, we were told. It was a footballing philosophy, a project, a model, a revolution. And perhaps it was. But if the reported findings stand after the appeals process, the story becomes considerably more complicated.

Nobody is disputing City's footballing quality. If you pour billions into a football club, employ Pep Guardiola and surround him with an extraordinary squad and infrastructure, you're likely to end up with very good football. City have played magnificent football, produced extraordinary players and changed the tactical language of English football. Those achievements don't disappear because lawyers have become involved.

The players themselves weren't sitting in boardrooms working out sponsorship accounts. They were playing football. They trained, ran, tackled, passed and scored. Rodri has said he believes nothing can diminish what the players achieved, stressing that their success came from effort and togetherness.

Quite right. Nobody is going to tell a footballer that his 40-yard pass didn't happen because an accountant somewhere had a difficult afternoon. But football clubs are institutions as well as collections of footballers, and institutions have rules. That's the bit West Ham supporters understand.

We've spent our lives being told that football is about passion, loyalty, history, community and the magic of the cup. Then somebody produces a spreadsheet and tells us it's actually about EBITDA. West Ham fans have never trusted EBITDA. It sounds like a Belgian midfielder.

Manchester City, however, have lived at the sharp end of football's transformation into a global financial industry. Now the paperwork has come knocking.

There is a certain irony in the fact that City's current season has begun brilliantly. They've been winning matches, scoring goals and sitting at the top of the table while, somewhere in the background, their legal team presumably works through another appendix.




The players are trying to win the Premier League; the lawyers are trying to win the Premier League case. City have managed to turn one competition into two.

There is, admittedly, a certain hypocrisy here. I'm not going to pretend that West Ham have spent decades running a morally immaculate football club while Manchester City have been the sole sinners in a corrupt temple. Football is full of clubs that have spent money they didn't have, employed people they shouldn't have employed, sold players they didn't want to sell and conducted negotiations in rooms where nobody has ever been entirely sure what was said.

The difference, if the reported findings ultimately stand, is the scale. 114 alleged breaches found proven would not be a technicality. It would be a very large elephant, and quite possibly one with a sponsorship agreement. So there is little point in righteous indignation. West Ham supporters are not particularly well qualified for moral superiority, and besides, it would spoil the fun.

There is enough amusement in watching a club that has spent years winning almost everything suddenly having to explain itself at length over the small matter of financial regulations. Apparently, the bill has arrived. It has come by registered post, gone through several committees and is now being appealed.

Naturally. This is Manchester City. Even their punishment has to go through VAR.

So let the lawyers argue and the appeals run their course. The final findings and sanctions, if any, will tell us what 115 charges actually mean in practical terms. Perhaps the consequences will be modest; perhaps they'll be enormous. Perhaps City will emerge with their trophies intact and their lawyers considerably richer. Perhaps English football will discover that its regulations are less powerful than everyone assumed.

For the moment, though, there is one small pleasure available to the West Ham supporter. For once, when somebody says, "Money can't buy you everything," we don't have to add, "But it can certainly buy you Manchester City."

We can simply smile. Because somewhere in Manchester, amid the trophies, lawyers, accountants and carefully worded statements, there is now an uncomfortable question sitting on the table:
Was everything quite as clean as we were repeatedly assured it was?

The answer will come through the appeal process and the final decisions. Until then, West Ham supporters can watch from a safe distance and enjoy the spectacle. We've spent years being told that modern football is a sophisticated business, after all.

At West Ham, we're still trying to work out the accounts. We've been at it since 1895.

* Like to share your thoughts on this article? Please visit the KUMB Forum to leave a comment.

* Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the highlighted author/s and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official policy or position of KUMB.com.