Manchester City Should Be Punished For Fraud, Not for Spending Money

I ask, by whose standard are these rules put in place?

I did not ask UEFA to decide what that standard is for me or for anyone else. It should not be their role. Their “standard” is anti-investment, anti-business, anti-capitalism, and anti-fan. Football clubs and leagues, in order to be great, must be given the freedom to determine what is in their best interests.

They should be allowed to do everything they feel is necessary to succeed and become great. Greatness, as we have seen in the Premier League, has bred more greatness. Teams should be allowed to fail if they make poor decisions that lead to their own financial destruction. It is very sad when it occurs, but it is part of natural order and people learn as a result.

Manchester City should be allowed to spend whatever money they want, invest whatever money they want, however they want to create the best business and team possible. That was what every great team in England has done over the years. It has brought the Premier League to where it is now.

That means that if its owners decide to put their money into the club as an investment, then fine, it’s their money to do what they do with it. This does not hurt the game in the long run. It improves it for the aforementioned reasons.

UEFA’s role should be to ensure the individual rights of the players, clubs, and businesses in its purview. They should do this by protecting those rights, not by limiting them. One step in protecting those rights is to protect the member clubs/businesses from fraud.

Fraud is an evasion of reality to obtain personal or financial gain. This is unethical and immoral.

The crime that Manchester City committed was not the fact that their owners spent money or how they spent it. It’s the fact that they attempted to cover it up by omission and commission. City’s owners utilized layers of shadow entities to invest additional money into their club. By funnelling all but 8 million pounds of sponsorship money through a shadow business and saying it was all from an actual sponsor (Etihad) is total fraud.

Failing to cooperate with UEFA investigators through further deception and outright lies, is proof of continued fraud. This was seen by submitting misleading financial statements and not responding appropriately when information was requested.

This is what Manchester City Football Club should be punished for. This is part of the proper role that UEFA as a regulatory body should provide for the great sport of football.