Billionaire scam: English Premier League stands on brink of financial and judicial abyss

The English Premier League, which for years has built an image of a benchmark of sports integrity and financial transparency, today resembles not the main sports showcase of the planet, but a courtroom where corporate interests have completely replaced the concept of justice. Manchester City have been formally found guilty of 114 of the 115 counts of violating the league's financial rules, but instead of imminent and harsh retribution, the football world has received only a protracted legal attraction that can last for years.

An independent panel reviewing the materials of a four-year investigation spanning nine seasons from 2009 to 2018 has issued an indictment. The range of possible sanctions ranges from giant fines and points withdrawals to direct relegation from the elite division. It would seem that the reputational and sports collapse should have come instantly. But the reality is far more cynical.

BUREAUCRATIC LABYRINTH

Instead of repentance or resignation, the management of the club chose tactics of deaf defense and bureaucratic resistance. Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak issued an open letter to fans saying the club continued to deny any wrongdoing. He stressed that the litigation in the Premier League is far from over, and the confidence of the leadership in their own innocence remained at the same level.

Executive Director Ferran Soriano, speaking before the Council of European football clubs on Monday, September 28, completely ignored the question of the substance of the allegations. He declined to comment on the club’s conviction for 114 offences, saying it would take years to clear the club’s name.

Manchester City are expected to appeal immediately. The case will be referred to a three-person committee. It is noteworthy that within the framework of the internal procedure of the Premier League, the club will not have the opportunity to apply to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which radically distinguishes this situation from the story of the two-year ban of UEFA, which was previously canceled in Lausanne. This fact ensures that the trial is deliberately delayed and the truth remains hostage to closed corporate proceedings.

THE GHOST OF CALCIOPOLI

The most absurd outcome of this situation may be the current season. Manchester City, coming in first place in the table after five wins in a row, are highly likely to finish the championship without an official decision and announcement of penalties. The Premier League, positioning itself as the richest football tournament in the world, will find itself in a state of permanent uncertainty. Even if the verdict is announced, appeal mechanisms will allow to postpone the implementation of sanctions until the end of the sports cycle.

If a miracle happens and the penalty of scoring is applied before the end of the season, Manchester City will instantly transform from a favorite to an outsider fighting for survival. However, a much scarier ghost looms over the history of English football.

There is a real risk of retroactive revocation of titles, similar to the Calciopoli scandal that rocked Italy two decades ago. Then Juventus was deprived of two championship titles: the title of the 2004-05 season was not awarded to anyone, and the award of the 2005-06 season was transferred to Inter Milan, the same club went to Serie B. If the Premier League decides to take similar steps against Manchester City, it will not just undermine the credibility of the tournament. It will open Pandora's Box to endless lawsuits. Other clubs, stripped of prize money, TV royalties and sponsorship contracts because of City's sporting advantage, will begin demanding colossal compensation for lost profits.

COPENHAGEN FARCE

The Manchester City case was the perfect, albeit highly toxic, backdrop for the General Assembly of European Football Clubs taking place today, September 29, in Copenhagen. About 500 of the organization’s 850 members gathered to discuss governance issues that now dominate the global agenda.

The delegates will be addressed by the chairman of the organization Nasser Al-Khelaifi and UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin. Ceferin’s presence is meant to highlight the weight of the event as UEFA tries to play a key role in shaping the balance of power in European football. However, the figure of FIFA President Gianni Infantino on this background looks more than symbolic. Infantino chose not to participate in the assembly, sending General Secretary Matthias Grafström instead.

The absence of the world's top football official is directly linked to FIFA's internal problems. Infantino's plan to attract private investment in the business of selling FIFA commercial rights has failed, meeting stiff resistance from confederations and national associations. As a result, Infantino was forced to offer to conduct an independent external audit of management and decision-making in his own organization.

This global crisis of confidence rhymes perfectly with the situation in England. The Manchester City case has exposed the main problem of modern football: the gap between the declared rules and the real mechanisms of their application. Issues of financial regulation, law enforcement, and the relationship between super-rich clubs and governing bodies remain hollow.

While independent commissions write reports and lawyers prepare appeals, the Premier League continues to generate billions by pretending everything is going according to plan. No sanctions have yet been announced, the process is not complete, and fans are forced to watch the sporting principle gradually give way to endless lawsuits and corporate arrangements.

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Of course, you can dance on the bones of the decrepit system of financial and legal relations in English football for any length of time, but in fact the problem of the cube is deeper and more terrible.

"Moskovsky Komsomolets" at one time published several materials ("EPL for sale: why foreigners buy up English clubs" and "In England, it is increasingly difficult for private clubs to compete with state clubs"), in which it was told in detail that the Premier League clubs ceased to be sports teams, turning into a profitable financial instrument of highly liquid assets for investment in both the short and long term. Multinational corporations and intercontinental mutual funds in North America and Asia are buying clubs to sell them at a profit in a few years. Or use for other financial schemes, and sports, the development of football, the education of talented youth is not always in the first place. This is partly (and perhaps not partly) the problem of the English national team. Realizing the danger, the British authorities are trying to create (or rather, they have already created and started to run in the pilot mode) some external independent regulator, the IFR, which acts including on the tip of “concerned fans”, and which will study the new potential owners of English teams under the microscope for the sincerity of their intentions, in order to later allow them to buy a local team, but this idea, although already approved by Parliament and became law, in practice causes many disputes and objections, including from the Premier League.

Moreover, such troubles exist not only in England, but also in Spain, France and Italy, where such financial scandals periodically shake the local sports community. There is too much money in the modern football industry and too much temptation to play against the rules at some point.