The Premier League v Manchester City and England beat Czechia – Football Weekly

0:00Max Rushden:This is The Guardian.

0:30I just thought, what has this thing done to him? Black Box, The Chatbots, a new podcast series from The Guardian Investigates. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

0:47George Elek:Hello and welcome to The Guardian Football Weekly. Sham City. Yesterday, the Premier League's damning verdict was released. A 40-page document listing City's financial deception and their determined attempts to hamper the Premier League's investigation, accusing important witnesses of lying. Manchester City still maintain their innocence including a leaked three-minute video from the CEO Ferran Soriano where he doesn't blink once telling staff to carry on as normal. It feels like they'll never admit anything. We await the sanctions but there are huge questions about the rest of the season. City three points clear at the top and the future of their players.

1:17George Elek:Beyond that, England win in Czechia. An early red card changed it but Anthony Gordon's becoming crucial to Thomas Tuchel. Trent Alexander-Arnold with one beautiful cross and a chance to look at Myles Lewis-Skelly and Alex Scott. Meanwhile, Scotland scupper themselves by going down to 10 early, and there's real positivity in Northern Ireland. Also, Robbie Savage is going to Peterborough. We'll take your questions. This is the Guardian Football Weekly. On the panel today, Barry Glendening, welcome. Hi, Max. Hello, Dan Bardell. Hello, Max Rushton. And out in Czechia, George Elek. You okay, George?

1:46George Elek:Yes. Yeah, I'm good, Max. Thank you. Bit croaky, but okay. Bit croaky. Minimal sleep. Plenty of karaoke in the bars of Prague. We'll get to that game. but hopefully while you were in that pub you read the entire Premier League statement on Manchester City Michael says at what point is it considered refutable that Man City have irrefutable evidence of innocence Chuck says should Liverpool and Man United do three separate parades or one parade with three laps so the Premier League released an official statement confirming Manchester City's guilt yesterday I've got a few bits from it an independent commissioner has found Manchester City FC guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League's financial rules over a nine-season period and the majority of charges in relation to its failure to cooperate with the league's investigation.

2:29George Elek:The independent commission found that between seasons 09-10 and 2017-18, Manchester City arranged sham contracts which misrepresented the true agreement between the parties with a number of its commercial partners as well as relying on sham agreements with others to artificially inflate the club's revenues and reduce its costs. The club filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators. Manchester City was significantly in breach of both the Premier League and UEFA's spending limits. During the investigation Manchester City committed multiple breaches of its duties of cooperation and utmost good faith towards the league and the commission concluded that the club had made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the Premier League investigation.

3:12George Elek:Barry, it's, you know, normally statements from official bodies are not extraordinary, but this was.

3:19Max Rushden:Yeah, and it's confirmation of what most of us have had a fair idea was going on for a long time. And I suppose the summary is that City cheated on an unprecedented industrial scale. They did so very deliberately and then tried to cover up their cheating by lying about it. And they lied consistently and deliberately. and it appears that despite this finding, they're showing no remorse or guilt whatsoever and are continuing to talk about this comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of our position relating to this case. They've been parroting that line for years, and you wonder at what point, if this irrefutable evidence exists, are they going to produce it and show it to us?

4:19Max Rushden:And then we can put an end to the matter. I think maybe the most interesting thing about yesterday is that we finally got some numbers put on the scale of their cheating and it was quite astronomical. It's basically disguised funding, 855 million, and hidden costs of 66 million. So we're talking over£900 million worth of cheating in their favour, which is£100 million per season for the period involved. And that just seems extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary. Yeah.

4:59George Elek:At the lying of the witnesses, evidence given by a number of important factual witnesses called to give evidence on behalf of the club was false in a number of key respects. the commission wrote arguing that some of the falsehoods have been deliberate certain of those factual witnesses had given evidence at the hearing that they knew to be untrue and so had been dishonest i don't know if we should be surprised by the dishonesty george just the people who have given these dishonest statements you know it's not the tea lady and the kit man doing it's it feels extraordinary yeah it does and also i guess the point on the tea lady and kit man is that they're kind of as well as the fans who are showing some contrition and other of things you know i guess they're the victims here in terms of of what's happening with the club as well as you know the other premier league clubs have been impacted and general premier league fans but yeah i mean i guess we shouldn't be surprised like it feels like everything the manchester city are being accused of and have been found guilty of is relatively brazen you know i'm no lawyer but i i don't understand how everyone assuming that the manchester city lawyers are trying to frustrate this this um process and trying to drag it out as long as possible so claiming irrefutable evidence and lying being found to be to be lying about the evidence they're providing seems to be quite a bad way of going about that so it's just a total mess like it feels like we're basically in a in a moment of civil war at the top table of english football right now um and it kind of given what's going on at the moment and reading the statements yesterday it seems pretty crazy that manchester city going to be playing premier league football in you know next weekend um as domestic football comes back because the relationship between um the most successful club of the last 20 years and the premier league itself is obviously at a at a stage where in manchester city they feel like they're being persecuted but the premier league are trying to do whatever they can to to implement the rules and and and basically stamp out what they see to be systematic cheating so yeah it's a it's a mess it's a um how this you know it's hard to understand what the process is now we saw the premier league saying that they want this to come to a conclusion as soon as possible it feels pretty unlikely um that we'll see any kind of resolution to this given the way the manchester city are clearly looking to fight it rather than you know ask for forgiveness and and you know accepting the the findings of the Premier League so I guess there's a possibility that Manchester City might even win the Premier League this season despite all this going on which um which would be pretty interesting given given the the noise.

7:14George Elek:Manchester City's response they issued a statement soon after the Premier League statement came out saying Manchester City football club is both disappointed and surprised by the opinion of the Premier League commission that's been published today the club is innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League and a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all its positions relating to this case. The club will therefore be relentless and where necessary proactive in any and all appropriate regulatory and legal forums. Jack says, do you trust a man who cannot blink for over three minutes?

7:42George Elek:This is the Ferran Soriano video. By all accounts, producer Joel was saying there's an AI function that if I was say reading a long bit of text, he could do something that meant I gave eye contact to the camera like I'm doing now, if you're watching on YouTube. but it doesn't tell you where to blink, clearly. So it looks mad. He says the whole Premier League case against us is based on a single false accusation that the owner's personal money was somehow and secretly put into the club via some sponsors from Abu Dhabi. This is just not true. He also said we'll take all necessary action to protect the club and seek compensation from any party that tries to damage it now and in the future.

8:17George Elek:They have until Friday to register their appeal. I mean, there are so many ways we can discuss this, Dan. And I think back to when I asked you a difficult legal question, who said, oh, I hope he doesn't ask me on this a few pods ago. But George's point about this season coming up, you know, that game against Liverpool, you know, just waiting for these sanctions to come out. And also from, you know, actually, you're an Aston Villa fan, and Gabby Agmonaul made a good point about the number of players you sold to Manchester City. And that is, you know, Barry, Milner, Delph, and that is one club in one bit of this sort of extraordinary tangled spiders web.

8:51Yeah, I think there's going to be so many clubs that have kind of got individual grievances and individual cases against what's happened with Manchester City here. And it just isn't going to be a swift conclusion either. So they're going to be going to countless grounds for probably a year, two years whilst this all gets ironed out because the appeal process, I believe, is going to take an awful long time. But we're all going to be none the wiser to what's going to happen. Meanwhile, Manchester City are probably going to continue beating a lot of football clubs as they carry on through this journey.

9:22and teams like Stoke got to an FA Cup final and then Manchester City beat them. That's a huge thing for Stoke. Villa at the time were battling Manchester City for top four at a time when Manchester City had never finished in the top four. Villa and Newcastle fans have had massive grievances with the ways that the rules work and we've always cited Villa and Newcastle fans that when Chelsea got taken over, when Manchester City got taken over, they could go out, they could spend what they wanted and they managed to turn themselves into the massive juggernauts they are today. so that's a problem because Villa and Newcastle can't do that now because of the rules but little did anyone know that not only could they just go out and spend what they wanted they could also just completely manipulate financials and just basically have free reign to go and do what they want and I feel sorry for the fans I think if I was a Manchester City supporter now everything that's happened in the last 10 to 15 years would feel more than tainted to me because they can come out and say that Manchester City almost saying it's like a single fact that is wrong and is causing all this.

10:25There's 115 charges, I think it is. That's an awful lot of wrongdoing. If they're not guilty of one thing, they're probably going to be guilty of another. But I've struggled to see how they can just continue playing in the Premier League and, as George says, potentially win the Premier League this season with all this just hanging over every single week it is absolutely the hell you the biggest thing that's ever happened in football since i've watched football we're all waiting for the sanctions

10:53George Elek:right it is sort of that gif of is it michael jackson eating popcorn going what are they going to do what can they what could they possibly do i i i i've just so i can't you know i don't know what i expect you to answer with but i just i think that moment we are all and it's so weird you know this we all get into this to watch football and now we're waiting for this thing to be decided by an independent panel. Whatever about the sanctions, we'll get to them,

11:19Max Rushden:but City, pre-Abu Dabu City, when they were down in the third division, their fans used to sing this song, We're Not Really Here, which was quite funny because the notion of City being in the third tier was quite ridiculous. That's where they were. And if they continue playing in the Premier League this season, which looks certain to happen, it's almost going to be the same. They're there, but they're not really there because all evidence suggests they're not going to be there for very much longer. But I don't think they can be on the Premier League's role of honour. I think they need to be stripped of the titles.

11:59Max Rushden:Not sure there's much appetite, even from players and clubs involved. I know Tony Pulis wants his FA Cup. Wayne Rooney doesn't want any extra league medals that are tainted by association with City's cheating. There are different views on that, but I think the Premier League, for the years they've won it, and possibly the years since, because they've won eight trophies in the time they were under investigation, but I think they've won 15 or 16 since, not counting Community Shields. There's League titles, there's FA Cups, there's Carabao Cups, there's a World Club Cup, the UEFA Super Cup, and a Champions League.

12:40Max Rushden:So as far as the Premier League is concerned, because it's they who took action against City, I think those years should maybe be left blank. They can't possibly stay in the Premier League, but the question then is where do you put them and for how long? Do you give them multiple points deductions year on year to make it incredibly difficult for them to work their way back to the Premier League? Do you give them transfer bans so they can't bring in new players? presumably if they're down in League Two or the Northern Counties League or wherever it is, they end up, Erling Haaland, and everyone else isn't going to want to stay there.

13:20Max Rushden:So it is absolutely fascinating to see what happens. But as for their immediate future in the Premier League, it just renders the competition a farce if they're still playing in it and still top of it while they've been found guilty of these charges it just makes a mockery of the competition and maybe the competition deserves that because it's largely the premier league's fault well not largely it's manchester city's fault but the premier league are fairly complicit in this mess that they've allowed to happen do you think

13:55George Elek:because because i think they've been i think they've at the same time maybe they've been complicit but also they've done i'm sort of surprised that they've pushed it this far in this case? Do you see what I mean? I'm not sure what option they had. Once all those documents emerged, the leagues, football leagues, and I mean, we saw the arrogance

14:17Max Rushden:of city officials corresponding with each other in those, we can do what we want, we can do whatever we want. So I don't think the Premier League had any other option than to pursue this to the stage it's got to now. George? There seems to be a fair bit of confusion as to what the Premier League can actually do in terms of punishment. A points deduction that they can administer whenever is the obvious one. But as Barry says there, once they're relegated from the Premier League, if they were to be hit with a 90-point deduction or something, they would basically ensure their relegation. And you consider the points deduction that Everton got for a far smaller financial misdemeanor.

15:04But once they're out of the Premier League, then suddenly they'd be a championship team and they'd be playing in the EFL. And therefore, the EFL would have to be the ones dishing out the punishment. and as we've seen in the past with Leicester's own financial issues you know they got promoted and they had to wait until they were back in the EFL in order to actually hit them with a punishment so I don't know how it would work we've obviously seen precedence for other cases where you know you look at other teams who've been banished from leagues and other things but I don't know how it would work like I've seen a lot of speculation about Manchester City ending up in non-league and things but I this is a question more than a point like I don't know what the actual powers that the Premier League have beyond going through a sporting sanction whilst they're still

15:46George Elek:a Premier League club. Sure. I saw Kieran Maguire, I heard amazingly on another outlet, saying that there's been a sort of separate thing where the Premier League and the EFL seem to be getting on quite well at the moment. So the Premier League and the EFL could kind of come to an agreement. I was debating this with Charlie Baker on the radio. He's a lower league football fans so am i i think fans would you know i would be quite happy if man city were in league one and came we've got to play them i think most efl clubs would see the pound signs of you know okay this would be great for the broadcast rights this would be a big story city going up through the leagues but he was saying well it completely ruins the sort of sporting integrity of the league when they're in it so there is a there's a difficult balance there i think it's a huge if the plan would be to basically punish them for for four consecutive seasons to ensure relegation out of the 92 then you're going to have a bit of a farce but every season a season in the championship is going to start with a team on minus too many points to make it back up again and then you only have two relegation spots and then three from league one and then one you know if you're actually going to go the whole way down down into league two could they not do a deal with the efl to put them straight into league two not saying you're going to have this point deduction this decision this deduction maybe but i don't know i mean i guess there's a whole nother legal battle coming then where the country will then challenge whatever punishment is dished out to them it just It's easy for us as fans sitting on the sidelines saying, you know, it's a disgrace, they should be chucked out.

17:04But there are actual, you know, there are only certain things that the governing bodies can do and clubs can fight them. So how they go about dishing out the punishment will be interesting.

17:13George Elek:It'd be interesting as well, Dan, to see how players react. Listen to some, a couple of things, listen to some ex-players. I heard Joe Hart was on Five Live saying, listen, until there's a decision, you know, I believe in my club. I don't know how he feels now. and I'd be interested to see the first Manchester City player, if there is one who's won lots in this era, to say, I'm really unhappy about this. I just wonder if Kevin De Bruyne or someone will be like, well, hang on. But then there's the current players. Does Elliot Anderson have a clause in his contract? These players that have signed so recently, what will they be talking about in the dressing room?

17:45George Elek:They will play at this game. Is the game at Anfield? Is the next game at Anfield? I think so, yeah. They will play in that game and they will see the reaction. I wonder what they're talking about in the dressing room. Will they try and leave in January? Will there be a fire sale? Because if they go down, they won't be able to afford the wages anyway because of the EFL rules. There's just so many unanswered questions. Yeah, that kind of fits in with what George was saying. It's another problem. If they do move down the leagues, they're going to instantly be breaking rules as soon as they enter that league.

18:14I saw the clip of Ruben Diaz and Erling Haaland speaking to each other after the game in midweek. and I think it's quite clear what they were probably talking about at that time. It's difficult for the players because a lot of them signed before this was really a thing. They're not guilty. They're guilty by association because they played for Manchester City but theoretically those players haven't done a single thing wrong and they're going to be going to grounds and getting abuse every single week. If someone like Enzo Fernandes has just signed for them, he'd probably be getting that anyway but they're going to be travelling to grounds and getting so much stick for something that they're not really complicit in.

18:51And part of me wonder, and I'm probably way off the mark here, part of me wonders whether Manchester City have an idea of what the punishment might be. Their transfer activity has felt very busy over the last few windows, like almost like hunkering down and getting ready for maybe a period where they won't be able to buy players and having a younger squad, a more malleable squad in place. It's just so hard. I find it really difficult to talk about and I'm sure everyone else doing it feels exactly the same because we've never had to speak about anything like this before. We've all had to speak about football finances way more than we would have liked to have done over the last four or five years.

19:29But now we're sitting here kind of doing the same thing but there's also the blatant cheating element towards it. And in a court of law, if you're found guilty of something, you're punished immediately. Whereas in the sporting sanctions here, they're guilty but we still might not find out what happens for another couple of years. I just find it really, really difficult to navigate at the moment and to see how the Premier League continues for like two years with this hanging over if it is two years.

19:55George Elek:I don't know, Barry, if you've read Johnny Lu's piece about the sort of macro element, you know, the Manchester City case shows us how the global mega-rich now expect to operate with impunity. That is a fascinating part of this, about, you know, the UAE have a 25 billion trade, I don't know, deal or whatever, just you know be stuff i don't quite understand with the uk andy burnham was the mayor of manchester when city were putting all this money in i find you know that idea that and he says it's not just nation states that we talked about but you know all these incredibly rich people who would be musk or whoever who just had so much money they just say to lawyers prove i'm right please off

20:32Max Rushden:you go well bloomberg did report recently that the ua have leaned on the british government as far as this case is concerned. The sort of taxid threat being that if you go too hard on City, this£25 billion worth of business we do with you every year could diminish considerably. And it's just a case of rich people are not used to being told no. They're used to being able to do whatever they want. I suspect that's why City seems so affronted by these guilty verdicts. It's almost like, well, how dare you find us guilty? We're incredibly wealthy people. We're used to getting our own way all the time.

21:17Max Rushden:And unfortunately, it doesn't look like they're going to be able to buy their way out of this one. But, you know, as I said, irrefutable evidence of their innocence. They insist it exists. So let's wait and see it.

21:32George Elek:And just one last thing on this, George. the sort of power of football for people. And we're all guilty of myopia. We're all guilty of losing our objectivity. There was one caller to Five Live yesterday. I don't know if someone put it in the WhatsApp group of someone saying, look, Manchester has a history, a great history, and talking about, you know, the suffragettes and saying, look, here's another example where we will fight the oppressors. Like when you break down what football is, it's kind of ridiculous that we invest so much time and so much of our own money and so much into it to believe this thing in front of us where it's some other humans running around and they could so easily play for other teams and all this thing and it gets to this stage of you're just so you're so in it that it's so hard to step away and look at what's actually happening i think that's why we all love it like i think you know obviously we enjoy watching football and we enjoy the drama but it's also it's a tribal thing like we all feel part of our tribe and we that feeling of community and that feeling of belonging to something and that that knowledge that while friends might come and go and whatever else you know a lot of uncertainty in life you have your football club there'll be your football club until you die and that that knowledge is something that's probably quite comforting and is why we feel so strongly about our clubs um and manchester city is like a really interesting you know it's it's a club unlike any other like an amazing history but you know has always been had always been until 20 years or so ago in recent history at least you know they're in the shadow of of manchester united in the same city um have a history of playing in you know in the second tier and even the third tier not that long ago um and then you know think if you're a manchester city fan who lived through that who used to go to main road experiencing what happened in the last 20 years beyond your wildest dreams so it's not that surprising that quite a lot of them are you know sticking up for their club and when you as you say when you are in it you are going to believe the club that you support now similarly there are a lot of manchester city fans who don't uh liken the current situation to the fight for suffrage and that's you know probably a better way of approaching um what's going on at the moment but there's also a huge fan base um that didn't exist 20 years ago of a younger generation who support manchester city because they're good for the same reason why a lot of people of my age support manchester united who have no ties to manchester and why a lot of people support liverpool from you know who are

23:44Max Rushden:10 15 years older a lot of gentlemen of a certain age can be seen wandering around ireland in blackburn shirts yeah exactly exactly you know that that's you know when you're a kid you support who are good and so i think there's probably quite a lot of manchester city fans who you know maybe would see the idea of dropping down the leagues quite exciting quite fun they've been there before like they've experienced the highs of this but for some it's like an absolute disaster they support manchester city because they want to win premier leagues and they want to win champions leagues that's where they want to get out of football fandom so being confronted with the idea that that might go um probably has quite a weird existential crisis inducing um impact when it comes to supporting football so yeah i mean we're seeing a few you know social media is is kind of it feels like the best days of certainly twitter are days like yesterday where you're seeing fan reactions of from from neutrals you're seeing massive head losses from your city fans you're also seeing some you know try and tackle the problem objectively um so i can see why you know while i vehemently disagree with that caller to five live and the points he was making um it's not a huge surprise to see city fans scrambling to try and find some kind of peace

24:54George Elek:in the situation it is funny when you log on i don't spend a lot of time logging onto twitter and staring at it but manchester city tweeting out what's the september of goal of the month vote here and you're like that's mad and then that of all the uh of all the parodies the one where pep is you know man well from faulty towers going i know nothing i know nothing it's absolutely You know it's a good day on Twitter when Max is sending us tweets from Pi Sports Booze, which is the name of the account.

25:22Max Rushden:Just regarding that famous Brian Clough quote about throwing your medals in the biggest bin you can find, which is doing the rounds a lot these days, the Michael Sheen version from the Damned United. I did a top, and of all the trophies they've won in the period they were cheating and the trophies they've won since, which they probably wouldn't have won without the cheating, I make it 920 medals in total that need to be chucked in the bin. You're going to need a very big bin or a skip even.

25:58George Elek:Are you including Scott Carson's medals in that?

26:01Max Rushden:Yeah, well, you get 40 when you win a trophy to hand out as a C fit. And also the word sham was bandied about a lot in the Premier League statement. In Ireland, a sham is someone who comes from the town of Toome in County Galway. So they're getting dragged through the mud here as well. I would like to, you know, my sympathies go out to the people of Toome at this difficult time.