The Manchester City case and the problem for the Premier League

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0:30Ryan Hunn: The podcast industry has spent years arguing about formats. The thing is, podcast audiences never cared. 88 % of them now consume audio and video. Not only that, 63 % of them have started an episode in one format and finished it in another format. And then three quarters of those have switched app mid-story to do it. They're not picking a format. They're picking whatever best fits the moment they're in. ACAST's latest research in Podcast Pulse 2026 maps four of these moments and what each one gives back to a brand. Get the full report at acast.com slash pulse.

1:27Hello and welcome back to the Stadio Podcast. I'm Musa Kwonga. I'm Ryan Hun. Ryan, how are you doing?

1:32Ryan Hunn: I am doing all right, thanks man. How are you? Good, good, good. We're doing kind of an emergency podcast. It's not an emergency. You can't turn it up four days late to an emergency. Yes, you can. They do it in Berlin all the time. True, that is true. Sorry, sorry to call out there. Wow, you have a really, really serious matter. we will send you a letter. It will be there within 10 working days. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. So, do we have any admin before we get into the Matthews horizon? Any admin? Well, first of all, we hope everyone's staying safe and well, wherever you are. Coming to you a day late this week.

2:06Ryan Hunn: Next week's show will be up late Monday, potentially early Tuesday as well, the Monday show. And for those of you listening on Patreon, the second show this week will go up Friday. We've got a guest, so very excited about that. Other bits of admin. Anyone in London? Stadio live show coming up in January at the Southbank Centre. It's our first Saturday night at the Southbank Centre that we're doing. Tickets are in the description if you want to go and get those. And yeah, just if you're listening on the free feed, you want to join up and listen to every single episode, ad-free info, help support Stadio, patreon.com forward slash Stadio.

2:43Ryan Hunn: You can join up as a podcast member where you get all the podcasts, or you can join up as a Stadio Social Club member, which gets you all the podcasts, access to the Stadio Social Club Discord and more. So that's it for the admin. And today we are just going to talk about the announcement of the Man City stuff. Yes, yes. And that will do us for today because it's probably the biggest story that's happened in men's, I mean in club football. It's bigger than the Super League because the Super League was a plan that failed. This is a thing that has been long running and has actually happened. And I think where this extends, the reason it's bigger than the Super League, I think, where it extends to, like socially, politically, the effects on other leagues, I think it's bigger, actually.

3:31I think it's bigger.

3:33Ryan Hunn: All right, so you would have all seen by now the news that David Ornstein broke on Friday in The Athletic. Congratulations, Tim, yet again. The Manchester City have been found guilty on all but one of the charges that the Premier League lodged against them? 115. And just to quote very quickly, just from the Sky Sports report, City were charged with breaking the Premier League's financial rules between 2009, 2018, and also failing to cooperate with the Premier League investigation between 2009 and 2023. It's very important to stress that City deny any wrongdoing and they've always said that their defence is supported by a body of irrefutable evidence.

4:13Ryan Hunn: So I imagine that the next stage will be City will appeal that outcome. The chairman of Manchester City, Khaldun Al Mubarak, released a statement basically just to suggest that the process is not done. You have his Declan Rice moment. It's not done. It's not done. It's not done. It's not done. And I imagine this will go on for a little bit longer before there is an official final ruling, let's say, plus a punishment. To be honest, I did not expect a verdict this definitive. I was shocked. Yeah, I was quite shocked. I was absolutely shocked. I think it throws up a lot of really quite existential stuff around football, especially around the Premier League, for rival fans, for rival clubs, but also for Manchester City fans and people involved in the club who aren't involved in the things that relate to the charges, right?

5:07Ryan Hunn: Yeah, I think there's a lot to unpack. The podcast industry has spent years arguing about formats. The thing is, podcast audiences never cared. 88 % of them now consume audio and video. Not only that, 63 % of them have started an episode in one format and finished it in another format. And then three quarters of those have switched app mid-story to do it. They're not picking a format. They're picking whatever best fits the moment they're in. ACAR's latest research in Podcast Pulse 2026 maps four of these moments and what each one gives back to a brand get the full report at acast.com slash pulse there's a lot to unpack and don't get me wrong there's a look there's a lot of ways there's a lot of issues here a lot of elements here one is about the financial warping of the competition all the rest of it but i actually want to go to the emotional core of this and there's a thread on blue sky by one of the users barry no vibes at indowry.bliesguider social.

6:05A City fan who posted this, I just want to read out this small section because this captures the emotional core of this. If you think the Manchester City project was meant to bring success and prestige to the club, and he commented, it's a very dark day. The main thing has been rattling around my head this afternoon. There should be far more anger at the owners than there is. We've been taken for a ride by people who didn't have the best interest of the club at heart. It was a wild ride, but any ire should be in their direction primarily. He goes on to say, the stench of this sort of thing, given the scale, won't go away quickly either.

6:44Anyone who knows anything about City's history knows we've been here before, but I honestly think we're looking at multiple generations before the club can move past this or ever puff out its chest again. And that stings. that's one perspective don't get me wrong but that's from someone who you know loves the club as deeply and not every City fan feels the same don't get me wrong but the fact that that is the spontaneous reaction of a lifelong City fan after a decade of astonishing you know success on the fields the fact that that's where it's gone before anything else before any appeals process that is what has emotionally gone to a place I find that powerful that saddens me actually yeah I mean it does

7:30Ryan Hunn: I know it's like it's weird to focus it might feel a lot of people might feel like alright you're focusing on Manchester City fans first but I think it is quite important to do that because how clubs behave in England on the whole can be quite different to how clubs behave elsewhere and let's take Germany as a prime example right protest against your own club is such a cultural phenomenon in Germany that just happens all the time that friction that is just inherently there between fan base and board, I think keeps a lot of stuff naturally in check. And what the Premier League's model specifically has allowed for is clubs to maybe behave in a way that they are insulated from...

8:13Accountability.

8:14Ryan Hunn: Accountability. And I think it makes things like this easier to mask because it is so opaque, a lot of it, right? It's really, really difficult and murky. you don't want to have to be wading into accountancy as part of your football fandom right i think the last decade or so in the premier league has led a lot of people to have to kind of do that willingly or unwillingly because it reminds me of a few things that happen in football sometimes where the discourse just has to go on without the acknowledgement that that thing is at play and it's weird that you have had this thing going on for so long in the premier league an outcome of which could have proved, let's say, that the competition has been extremely violated over a sustained period of time.

9:01Ryan Hunn: And everyone just has to kind of get on with it. And I think that's where I land on all of it. When you get down to the nitty gritty of it all, it is so wild that something like this could have, you know, if the outcome is upheld and then the punishments are dished out, it is wild that something like this has been allowed to go on for this long and distort a competition to this degree over such a sustained period of time. It's so unserious. It's so unserious because you're planning... I can't even... What social equivalent is this? It's like a... I don't know. I don't even think... I can't, I can't.

9:48Ryan Hunn: You're never going to pull one that's kind of like super accurate for that because it's just so, it's so singular. It's like thinking you've been paying a mortgage for like 40 years and you turn up to like take possession and it's like, oh, actually it was never yours. I started there because I wanted to say that even on its own terms, the Manchester City project at some level is an emotional failure. At some level, it's an emotional failure. That, that project right beyond anything else because whatever findings come out that is that's a lifelong cities fans emotional reaction and that is not the kind of person you should be that person should be firmly in your corner and i'm not saying that all fans feel like that but that is i think quite significant the other thing as well i think is and of course you look at other fan bases and look i'm a manchester united fan so one reason i've not been vocal on this that much since 2008 is because frankly a lot of people just assume i'm a bad faith actor and i don't I mean same here you know what I mean and actually and actually to be honest like I think I've just adjusted my expectations and my reactions to certain things to do with the club that I support within the context of what is going on yeah and I think don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's not even about and this again to be clear this isn't about how City have spent their money right it's not it's about the rules and I think of and I can't help but think of the players that were denied incredible career defining moments the fan bases you know the teams that turned up like what you know Watford and I have to say I want to mention Watford specifically Watford turning up to Wembley and getting absolutely cooked 6-0 you know things like that they do matter I'm picking out an individual example but these are clubs that don't get a big day out again necessarily and I just think all of it it taints so much and for the Premier League what they're trying to build as a brand, it doesn't deserve to succeed.

11:43It doesn't deserve -

11:44Ryan Hunn: I think it's extremely damaging for the Premier League. I think yes, because one thing I've noticed in the last few weeks, months, is these structures, these vast structures that you think will be around forever, they really, they're quite impermanent. The Premier League's not old, right? It's been around since 1992. And for a lot of that time, it's been compromised. And it hasn't been an effective, safeguard of the game's values. It hasn't. It can't argue, oh yeah, we've really been really good at gatekeeping this. We've come to a quick decision. No, they've just sat there and they twiddled their thumbs.

12:19The chief executives have been largely invisible, asleep at the wheel. I think they've been very, very complacent here. And actually, what interests me, I suppose the conversation that interests me for going high level, is this a bigger crisis for Manchester City or the Premier League? I think it's a bigger crisis

12:35Ryan Hunn: for the Premier League because let's play hypotheticals. I agree with you. If the punishment is super severe and there's a forced sale of the club, new ownership comes in. If there's a new ownership model, you could potentially turn that into an absolute PR win. And you're already benefiting off the structures that the ownership that has been punished has put in place for you to succeed at a level... Totally. Whatever, right? So it's kind of a win. It's like Chelsea plays Debramovich. yeah temporarily it is yeah yeah it is but it is like you know when new owners come in and then people feel different about their football club yes it's really bad for City and we can talk about City in a little bit but I think the Premier League is the focus because it proves a failure of governance and a failure of like the Premier League has basically been trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube for the last decade because they realised that their whole model was born out of bringing in as much capital as possible to then make the league as rich as possible to bring the biggest players in to bring the biggest coaches in and blah blah blah blah and we've seen that the premier league is a financial success to the point where it has completely damaged the rest of european football specifically because every other league is is trying to figure out how the hell they can even close the gap they're not even trying to overtake the premier league they just want to close the gap a bit part of me just kind of sits here and it's just like was it worth it if your competition is going to essentially be tainted for however long.

14:06Ryan Hunn: And it's going to be really hard to undo. I think what you're going to get is even more fans who are going to be entrenched. There are going to be Man City fans who are just going to be like, this is corruption, the Premier League, the Red Cartel, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then you have people on the other side of that, Man City fans are going to be like, well, this is kind of just tainted a load of the best football memories for me. And then you have a load of other fans who are like, we deserve three titles because of this period or this is an asterisk I'm actually it's funny I'm most sympathetic to Liverpool fans in all of this I'm most sympathetic to Liverpool because the Premier League executives must quietly have been so relieved that Jurgen Klopp exists because that man without him there this league this oh best league in the world would have been a city steamroller year after year and Klopp made those title races interesting he kept the games interesting he kept the vibe interesting and even though he had a very good idea what was happening and that it was deeply unfair and would allude to it now and again he didn't dwell on it he got on with it and they owe that man a huge debt they owe clop a huge debt because i think i think actually the premier league got carried away they were lax on the rules early on and mad city's owners came in turned it into war of lawyers what's that thing they said the quote that leaked about hiring some of the best lawyers for the next 50 years.

15:30And I think the Premier League were panicking and they were relieved that the Clubs Liverpool kept it interesting. The one thing I want to say about that on a personal note, I was out for dinner a few years ago and that's one of the nights I realised that football had truly changed. I was out with an old friend a few years ago for dinner in London and he bumped into someone he'd known at uni and this guy was now working at one of the biggest law firms in the city. I might have mentioned this story before and he was working, you know, with a big Premier League club. And I thought to myself, lawyers should not be having this much fun litigating football matters.

16:06And he was having, he took a real pleasure in, oh, the financial like details and the loopholes. And I actually remember thinking, this is kind of gross. He was like a friend of a friend. I remember thinking he walked away and he looked very sort of happy with himself. And I just thought the rules were not created so that people like you could be making hay off legal battles. like this this should have been sorted so so long ago all of it and where it leaves us now as a competition and I can't say look and I say this I'm a United fan maybe I've got a free hand to say this because we were in decline at the time a lot of this was going on I hopefully can say this from stepping back to this extent I loved those Liverpool teams I loved what Arsenal were building but don't forget the discourse last year about how oh like it's this year or never

16:53Ryan Hunn: I think that's a separate thing. I think that's just a failure of a lot of discourse around the prep. Like, for example, you know, we got to the point where if you mentioned the charges for Man City, people just be like, that's woke. So it's just, it's, it's, it was also true. Yeah, it is though, but this is the thing where like, that's a punditry problem and that's a fatigue problem. When things like this go on, and this is where you have the kind of the layers to it, right? And the knock-on effect. The knock-on effect of, I mean, people are going to exploit the rules, whatever. as we've seen in the NBA recently with Steve Barmer and the Clippers and now the NBA has I think has quite a if you violate the salary cap you pay a fine right now I know that that's for some that's kind of like well yeah cool some people can just eat the fine but at least it's there and it's clear if there were things like that in place from the jump in the Premier League that maintained financial and sporting parity as much as possible then yeah people would have still tried to exploit that and there would have been cases of that happening however i don't think anything would have been able to go on for a potential or there wouldn't have been a case that would have been able to go on for over a decade i just think i suppose the thing is if you look at the infringement of like clubs like forest and everton and how those things were dealt with so quickly and you really have this thing of like who is justice for who is like who is accountability for it's just one of those things where it mirrors it just mirrors other aspects of society and I think the reason why I'm so shocked by this ruling or news of this ruling is that I just didn't think that accountability existed for organisations anymore at that scale I would say with the forest and the Everton thing just to clear a cut far more simple cases not saying that they're you know that's fair but I think it's easier it was easier to kind of I mean you see the resistance that has been caused by these charges right and the reason Chelsea got off very lightly I think.

18:59Ryan Hunn: Self-reporting. Look this is the biggest case that the Premier League has had. It's the most substantial case, it's the most long-running case and it's the most impactful case. There was almost too much at stake to not make sure that they got this in their eyes right right. genuinely my feelings towards this aren't really anything to do with being an Arsenal fan this case has been part or the suspicion has been part of the ecosystem for so long that it's everything that you I think I said this before but everything you you're judging it with that context like I'm looking at this more from someone who does something like Stadio because this is quite a big deal this is a massive deal on a sporting sense and it and it I think the thing that maybe I'm finding it a little bit difficult to talk about concisely is that I think it it pushes so many of the things that we've talked about football over the years and how there could be a better football at play and how so many people just say oh you're either bitter or you want this or like oh my god like everyone should just hold hands and blah blah and I'm like no actually because if you're making fans who have who have experienced all of this stuff through this time question that success and taint that success that they have seen and experienced and the joy that they've experienced.

20:20Ryan Hunn: Like, especially in the current time when, you know, I think people are leaning more towards authenticity as just a thing again because they're so used to just not knowing what is real and what's not anymore. I think it prods like a really interesting like psychological button. I completely agree. And I think for me, that's just, no matter who it is, And yeah, there will be people who just want to be kind of, there's going to be a lot of Ewoking going on, Musa. Yeah, yeah. And that's also fine because that's part of the culture and part of the kind of whole ecosystem of football. And people should do that.

20:56Ryan Hunn: And I think Man City fans would do the same if it happened to a rival club. But for me, I'm just a bit like, all right, what next though? Because this is so damaging on so many levels. My own personal experience of this, just to wrap up, sorry because I've been monologuing. It's just to kind of be like, well, my enthusiasm and my faith in the Premier League as a thing anyway was wafer thin. Where is it now? You know? That's exactly it. You know, it is. And the fit and proper ownership test was the beginning of all this. We've been talking about it for ages. And I feel a lot for the Manchester City fan and journalist David Kahn, who had every right to be thrilled, you know, from just a purely fan perspective when all the investment came into City.

21:35but instead he turned his eyes on the ownership and whether what they were doing was good for the club and the integrity of the game more generally because that's what he ultimately cares about most of all and it was quite disquieting to see the kinds of things that they were brushed aside in terms of integrity in terms of stewardship of the game in terms of like what the game should stand for and there was a turning point in football these things aren't inevitable didn't have to go down this road and there was a period for a long time and some would say oh you're a United the fan you would say that when the premier league you were kind of checked out of it because you just felt you knew something was badly wrong you knew something was badly wrong because charges would be added but they seem to be ignored because huge investment was still coming in and as the investigations went on as everything was pending there was no sense of like oh actually let's have a preliminary ruling which would inhibit further spending while this is you know there was there was no kind of like safeguarding measure there was no kind of and maybe in future there could be something.

22:33Look, if a case is going to go on for like a multi-year period, there'll be interim periods and rulings where you can't invest X, Y, Z. But I think of course, what happened was the Premier League never envisaged. The Premier League thought it was an apex predator. It never envisaged that a state owner would be as aggressive as the Mad City ownership was. It never envisaged this. It never imagined having to fight teams of lawyers. And UEFA was not imagining having to deal with an opponent of this size, this scale, these resources. I've just read this amazing book by a guy called Patrick Radden Keefe called London Falling.

23:11And it's about the metropolitan police just being under-resourced when having to look at alleged financial mismanagement, you know, misdemeanors, and it just doesn't have the resources. Right. And I feel like UEFA and the Premier League, they came up against a bigger beast, actually. and they need to, I think in future, well, a bigger beast or they were more complacent or an equivalent one. They just need to be, I think in future, really careful about their safeguarding because people could spontaneously lose interest. They could, you know, like this is the thing I was talking to a friend this, uh, this morning about this, about the thing about empires, institutions, right?

23:52They don't, they always end. They crop, but dramatically. Yeah. And it can fall off a cliff. You know, look at, look at, okay, look at the MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe. We talk about it all the time. Raining for a long, long time. And now, the fanfare about, you know, when Avengers Infinity War dropped, everyone was like losing their minds. And now that Doomsday is coming out, people are like, yeah, the core fans are there. People have drifted away. And the Premier League actually have to be careful because I think, look at the big picture, could people just spontaneously drift away from it?

24:25Not the core, but like, you know.

24:28Ryan Hunn: so i think something has to change now that sounds like well yeah the sky is blue kind of thing right what i mean by that is that i think there's quite a lot of focus on the titles that could have been won and they affect maybe the fan bases and the players of three or four clubs maximum there is an alternative view here like a non kind of traditional powerhouse view of fans of clubs who may be more sympathetic to this kind of investment coming in because it's their only pathway to potential success, right? Yes, yes. And that has to change. And this is, I mean, I think we've, look, I don't want to big ourselves up here, but I think we've been calling for this for years.

25:11Ryan Hunn: And we have said even, you know, I remember saying, look, Arsenal winning the league last year was unbelievable. And it was something that I genuinely never thought I would see again in my lifetime because Arsenal were a million miles away from it. I would take that once every 10, 20 years if it meant that the variety of teams who could genuinely win the league was bigger. Yes. It was more increased, right? There was a pathway for a Bournemouth side under Iriola or, you know, who knows, Marco Rosa. Yes. To potentially just have a season where everything, kind of like Leicester, right? But just more of those cases.

25:48Ryan Hunn: Yeah. and for it to be doable and for it to be less like the only way that you can do this is if you have this and now it's even more impossible to do that as we've seen with Newcastle United because there have been tighter guardrails because they've been trying to roll back some of the stuff that they've realised that they just have never kept a handle on right and that is quite important and I think that is a really important thing to remember in all of this because the Manchester City thing, it's a symptom of a league or a sport that is failing. To some people, that might not be such a big deal.

26:29Ryan Hunn: It might just be a reality of life because we have conversations with people like this all the time, right? It's just the way of the world. Like, yeah, but we know so much now. Why is this the case? It won't happen because it's just not a priority for people. If this decision is upheld and the punishment is severe, the Premier League has never been in a stronger position to redraw what can happen and what can be invested and actually create an ecosystem for more parity among the league. It won't happen, I don't think, because it's too sensible. But if they are going to do it, they will never have more goodwill because they can precisely point to this thing as the catalyst for that.

27:13And they need to decide what they're for. The Premier needs to work out what it actually is. Yeah because I think the survival of the league

27:18Ryan Hunn: is really paramount here because I think if no one has faith in the league anymore you remove City from the situation and then Arsenal go and potentially win the league for the next four or five years it's a very very different thing I think it is different I'll tell you why because at the time when that was happening at the time when United and Arsenal were exchanging the league between them for that period the sense of fairness was greater when Liverpool and Everton were exchanging the league between them in the 80s, the sense of people actually are quite good with that stuff. If a team goes on a run...

27:51You always had periods where teams... Yeah, if a team... And I think, you know, people actually... Everyone's having a go at the challenger, but like, I mean, you look at Liverpool as a good example in the 80s, right? And I use them because I think they are a good example in terms of a team that had, funnily enough, didn't actually optimize their commercial elements off the field. That was talked about a lot, but when Liverpool were dominant, they were hated for all the right reasons. They were hated for all the right reasons. They were hated because they were winning and they were doing it fairly.

28:18We didn't like it. I still hate it. I'm still angry about it. But you know what? It was righteous hatred. Not this thing where it's tainted by the sense that you're turning up and it's fundamentally unfair at some level in a way that you can't quantify or prove or talk about or even allege. That's, I think, the thing. Regardless of who goes on a run, I mean, frankly, regardless of, let's say, Arreola goes on a hot streak and Liverpool just start cooking the next three, four years. Even that... I think football fans are actually fairly forgiving. If you look at even that, even everything that's been gone on with City, I think actually the discourse around them has been, I was actually quite charitable, which reflects on football fans, I think, quite well.

28:56If you consider the rage that could have been directed towards them before or after this ruling,

29:02Ryan Hunn: people have been pretty... I think overall, yeah, I think overall, they've been extremely well-discussed. I think football fans are actually, for all the tribalism, fundamentally are quite a generous group of people. Yeah, and there's also just a kind of like, well what is the point like this is the reality of the situation so right right right until otherwise and this is on and to come back to it this is on the football authorities what I would like to see more of I don't expect to see it because they haven't covered themselves in glory thus far but I would expect to see more visibility from Premier League executives more transparency in the years to come you know coming out you know if you're expecting referees to come out and explain decisions I expect executives to come out and explain decisions with the same transparency the referees do who have far less power actually because the Premier League has a credibility problem that runs right to its core and if they don't get a handle on it look, look how quickly Live Golf fell apart yeah yeah like and the reason I say that is because when Live Golf emerged when the Saudi Pro League got the financial boost and became almost like the Saudi like Super League or it was envisaged that these would be the structures that would go on and reshape gold forever and reshape.

30:15They've had a disruptive effect, absolutely. But it's interesting that those structures that emerged very quickly in the last few years have collapsed. And maybe that's because it's harder to get traction for stuff that just comes in and tries to be top down and just iron out what was there before. I think it's super interesting because you wouldn't have said when those things first emerged, those structures that they would have folded or subsided as quickly as they've have in terms of like importance and the Premier League has to be careful because it came in with a lot of fanfare and it acted like it was going to hang around or be the big dog for like however long and whatever form it takes is vastly diminished and I'm saying all of this I'm not expecting anyone from that organization to listen to this podcast I'm just trying to add my voice to the noise because I hope that something at some point cuts through and pierces the armor of these people to the point where they're like, we have to change this and make it better.

31:14Because right now, the Premier League is not fit for purpose and it hasn't been for a very long time. You know? It just hasn't been.

31:22Ryan Hunn: Yeah. I think it's way too rich. The clubs have way too much power to shape the kind of decisions made by the league. Yeah. And as we've seen, I don't think clubs, and I think more than Manchester City, this is Manchester City far from the only club they're the club who has been who has done this to a level that no one has like really seen before but they're not the only club who I don't think fully respects the organisation because we're always hearing about beef there's so much beef in the Premier League yeah yeah you know what I mean like a big old butcher's yes

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33:21Ryan Hunn: that if for example the punishments are severe even if say for example well i mean like look we should say that obviously it's going to appeal if the decision is upheld and the punishments are severe do you think that even if a forced sale isn't one of them do you think that we will see a change in ownership gosh you know it's so interesting i i hadn't even i haven't thought for more than 20 minutes in all of this when the news breaking about what the sanctions could or should be like i haven't sat and really gone it should be x yeah i think whatever the sanctions are they should be severe enough that no club ever considers risking this again running the numbers and actually just like what that would mean i think that's what it has to be i don't know what form that takes but this cannot they cannot a premier league as a as an institution it can't forward another one of these it just can't because you you are you are you are cheating people of the you're cheating people of the authenticity of their moments actually and i I don't, you know, we can relitigate it all, but the Steven Gerrard slip, all these things, these things will flash through players' minds, actually.

34:36These things, these races, these title races, these promotions, these relegations, having to get a result of whatever club at a certain time and having a demoralising result mid-season that puts you on a real slide because you get absolutely hammered by a team. You've got a few injuries, you've got players out, and then you get like, you get hammered like 6-0 and you never really recover from it. Like all of that, it flashes through your mind and naturally it should actually, it should actually.

35:02Ryan Hunn: So I think, yeah, the big, the big things here are what happens with the ownership, but also what happens with further legal action. Because there have been reports of even like Arsenal alone searching for or seeking 200 million pounds in damages. Now if City end up having to pay out multiple settlements to multiple clubs, like settlements to multiple clubs. for example if they'd been found guilty on half you know I think it would have been a bit more you know they would have had a little more power for example Manchester City I think being found guilty on all but one currently and if that decision is upheld I think you are just every single club is just going to be like this is a pile on and they are just going to go and you are just going to see lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit I think it's going to not just be clubs who could have won stuff or clubs who could have made it into the Champions League.

35:58Ryan Hunn: I think you're going to find clubs whose big decisions or big games against City may have cost them relegation. It's going to be endless. That's why a forced sale would be horrific because actually, the only thing about suing them is because people know at the moment they have limitless pockets, bottomless pockets. A forced sale and people are like, we've still got beef with you. This is why it's a big problem for City, actually, going forward. Because these claims, if they start coming, they won't stop. Tony Pulis, and there's not much sympathy, I think, around that conversation. But Tony Pulis going, look, cheated Stoke of a day out in 2011.

36:39The Tony Pulis conversation felt like the beginning of something where people turning up to kind of have their day in court, whether moral or actual. and that's a problem for City because I think that's a conversation that goes beyond the for sale if there is one. Do you know what I mean?

36:58Ryan Hunn: Yeah, I don't think this is... Yeah, I think this is just... I think this is just the start of something else. Yeah, that's the thing. The one thing I'm sure of, the one thing I'm certain of about all of this, there's so much uncertainty, the one thing I'm certain of is it is really just only the beginning of the implications and this is a club the institution of Manchester City and I say this as a United fan it is a great institution and I don't actually envy I don't envy their future actually I don't I don't with the trophies or whatever I don't envy it because that Manchester United thing I like hated adored never ignored all of that I never fully bought into that but I would say being a factor in football for the right reasons it matters I don't know I just think And I think that fans of certain clubs are going to hate other clubs for whatever reasons, and they have that.

37:53Ryan Hunn: And there's a wide spectrum of reasons that people hate clubs, dislike clubs, don't believe in XYZ projects. I think fandom doesn't mean ignoring anything your club does and just completely backing them no matter what. I feel like the amount of times I've sometimes had to defend the Bundesliga to people who are very pro Premier League over the last couple of years I feel like that, you know, Game of Thrones gif where I'm pulling out the sword and there's just everyone running at me. But like this would never happen. The thing with the Premier League is just that there just seems to be, do you know what?

38:29Ryan Hunn: We joke about this quite a lot, but it does mirror a lot of what's just going on in the UK in general. It's kind of pure entrenched positioning and a real lack of genuinely maybe like thoughtful critique and just ignoring stuff for years and years and years until it gets to a point where it breaks and then people being like, well, it's like the guy, it's like, you know, Tim Robinson in the hot dog thing. Do you know what I mean? We wonder who did this. I don't know if this is like related to other things and whether you feel this as well, but there's just like a series of stuff that is happening where I'm a bit like, how much more information do you need?

39:05Ryan Hunn: And why aren't things better than they are? Yes. We know why. I'm not going to sit here and do it, but I feel like this is just, it's just another example of that eking into sport to the point where I don't want that. And I don't think anyone does want that. I have no... I wouldn't want to watch Arsenal win the league for years and years and years if I knew or if it turned out that this had been going on behind. Yes, of course. I agree. There was no magic to that. There's no point. No magic to it. Thank you. Do you know what it is? And I think this is connected. And I agree. And I want to add to why this is...

39:38There's a wider point about why people... Yes, there is. Because there's a wider point of people feeling they don't have agency.

39:45Ryan Hunn: Yeah. And it's not just about the cost of everything, although that is an element of it. It's also about people fundamentally abdicating responsibility for change. Like we are individuals, there's a lot that we can do as individuals. There's a lot of interventions we can make on a day-to-day basis to make stuff better, like in the immediate circumstances. And the one thing I was always slightly pushed back on, you know, When a club is taken over by owners who have 100 % ownership in this and that, yes, fans are disempowered, but they're not powerless. The Super League proved that. The Super League proved that.

40:26actually it showed that if stadiums empty out or if pitches are invaded before every kickoff things change very very fast what's happening is human beings ultimately are choosing to interpret being disempowered as completely powerless and that's not the that's not the case at all that's why this is so fascinating this whole thing because it began with one person leaking some leaking some emails and it's changed that one person rui pinto who by the sounds of it is still under police protection because he annoyed some extremely powerful people institutions um he changed the football world he changed the football world and that's the lesson i take from all of this in the end like i was i don't know if i mentioned this on the podcast before but i was on social media a few months ago and i was looking at a really interesting discussion between historians and one of them was a historian who studied structures and they said what was the what's the one thing that you wish you'd known?

41:23What's something you've learned since starting out as a historian in this field? And he said, I had underestimated the impact that an individual could have on the world. A committed individual could have on the world. I hadn't accounted for it because my whole thing is like structures, institutions, you're a third, but actually if someone comes forward and does the right thing, it can change everything. Because actually if that person hadn't done it, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But that in itself is kind of mad.

41:57Ryan Hunn: It's frightening, isn't it? It's frightening. It's wild, right? If you think about it, that is not a... It's not a sustainable way to run a society. No, it's not good. Not good, not good, not good. You know, not good. Anyway, but yes. Yeah, so I think that the future of the club is, I think, in... Goodness knows, goodness knows. But again, so much of this depends... This conversation will continue when the outcome of the appeal is heard and then whatever sanctions are put in place. So it's something that's going to continue. And also, we will talk about it a little more, but I think it's because no one's said anything yet either.

42:35Ryan Hunn: There's been the brief thing from City on the website, but there's been no Premier League communication yet. and I believe that is because they are supposed to keep a there's confidentiality on all this stuff so nothing, all of this is just everyone's just kind of a little bit in the dark about it what I would say, can I just say the one thing I wouldn't say I'm just thinking today of every fan, executive and player who genuinely did not get what they bargained for or hoped for out of the last few years that this has been going on like who looked at the world of football and had a certain feeling towards it about what they wanted from the game win or lose and for those people who are like genuinely disappointed by the way things have played out i feel for them actually um because that's it's our place of refuge escape joy community and it shouldn't be tainted like this i think regardless of who you who you root for yeah i agree i think it's gonna be really interesting we will discuss it i think about um you know what this means for like peps like it's as well that is that is a i mean i wonder what comes out in any yeah because i think it's really i think a lot more stuff is going to come out when once i think that that stuff gets um you know the appeals done and then the sanctions and blah blah I think it's a really, really interesting discussion because, you know, I think that we've talked about this before about how even with all of that financial firepower and being found guilty of all of the stuff that they've been found guilty of, I think it's up to and including, was it up to 2018, right?

44:23Ryan Hunn: Yeah, yeah. So that takes in a couple of years of PEP. Yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah. You know, we've said before, even with all that, I still don't think they've managed to get it over the line a lot of the times without PEP. I mean they did do under two of the managers but as consistently as they did in that time period without Pep, that doesn't mean it's alright Yeah, totally It doesn't mean it's okay Is there anything else you want to talk about specifically around that today? Because we've not, I know that's just like a lot of thoughts but I think that's just, we wanted to do something initial like an initial episode about it just to because it is huge and I think it will be one of many episodes about this topic because there's going to be more stuff to come I remember doing, actually before we I remember when we did one when the UEFA thing happened, and that felt massive.

45:07Ryan Hunn: But the landscape now compared to them is so different. It was a different thing, and that went away quite quickly with the CAS case and stuff like that, but I think this is very different. I think the ripples of this or the kind of impact of this will be far greater, more sustained. We'll rumble on for a long, long time. This isn't the end of anything right now. I think this is just like, we're just in the next phase of whatever this is. And what a nightmare that it breaks at the start of the season. Well, I mean, the thing is, so they go to Anfield when the Premier League returns. I think what's really interesting is going to be seeing the reception of opposition fans give the side.

45:50That's going to set the tone a lot, isn't it? That's going to be interesting.

45:54Ryan Hunn: but Maresco was out there you know he thought that the only the only sensible response to this news on Instagram confident confident man just decided to put a picture of his bare feet walking maybe he was touching grass maybe that was the whole thing do you realise how confident you have to be in like your feet for everyone to be paying attention like they're going to look at my Instagram I'm going to get my feet out the level of I've got to say it's bold actually should have added another charge on for that bringing the game it to disrepute

46:27alright

46:28Ryan Hunn: is there anything else you want to talk about with regards to that today or do you want to hold off everything until I think that's good I'm good for now actually yeah do you know what man my look I know that like we said before there will be various emotional responses to this some fans will be checked out some fans will be as we mentioned Ewoking rejoicing at the downfall of an enemy yes yeah there will be some who are in denial there will be some ready to go to battle for their team because of it but genuinely when I saw the news break I was just like yeah of course you know we always had said that thing haven't we about a lot of top level very very top level men's football does its best just to like continually just push you away and it just felt like another thing for that and I really do hope that it leads to some kind of change but I've lost count how many times we've said that since we started doing Stadio we've only been doing it seven years yeah absolutely football football bloody hell alright everyone on that cheerful note we're going to leave you to it you will don't forget if you want another episode this week and you haven't signed up go to patreon.com forward slash Stadio you can sign up as a podcast member or a Stadio Social Club member to get every single episode ad-free in full.

47:52Ryan Hunn: Members, we're going to be back with another episode on Friday. Until then, don't forget to check the Stadion just plays on Spotify, speaking of which we're playing out on Hole in the Roof by African Head Charge. Apologies, we literally didn't talk about any other football, including Mikel Otharboe's absolutely brilliant winner against England, by the way. Ballon d 'Or. Ballon d 'Or? Ballon d 'Or. But he's not even in the conversation. He's not even been nominated. But yes, we will touch on some more football another time. So until then, anything you'd like to add with Sokwanga? Nothing further.

48:22Ryan Hunn: All right, everyone, much love. Have a great week and we will be back with you on Friday. See you then.

48:51Thank you.

49:23Thank you.

49:53Thank you.

50:27We'll be right back.

51:10We'll see you next time.

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