Today we had the opportunity to witness one of the cruelest measures in UEFA club competitions – Manchester City has been banned from the UEFA Champions and UEFA Europa Leagues for 2 years!
The shocking decision of UEFA resulted in anger and fury for the Manchester City fans.
However, in all honesty, this ban might not be that much unexpected at all.
Sources report that not only did Manchester City break the rules of financial fair-play that UEFA has established, but also tried to cover the evidence by manipulating the books for increasing the money earned by sponsors.
It seems that this is what triggered such a measure from UEFA as we will wait for the result of the conversation between the two sides.
As we all know, it isn’t so unusual of Manchester City to make a multi-million deal with the player since from 2008 and purchase of the club by Sheikh Mansour, there were numerous cases of such trades.
Manchester City has started the tradition of buying extremely expensive players for the team, which was still ongoing during the last few transfer windows.
Namely, it is known that Sheikh’s investment in the club made huge expenses to the Sheikh, although the value of Manchester City as a club has significantly grown.
Overall, the rule set by UEFA to minimize the difference between regular football clubs, and those with wealthy owners requires each club that is competing in UEFA-supported competitions to respect it and follow the rule.
In the eyes of the UEFA, Manchester City has failed to accomplish that goal.
We can only guess how this situation will resolve since Manchester City’s general director has already stated that the club will not stand still while UEFA is doing its best to suspend it form European Competitions.
Thy club will use the first possible opportunity to ask for a foreign body inspection of the papers, while the club officials state that there was no such a thing as accounts and reports manipulation and breaking of the financial fair-play.
Not participating in the Champions League for two years would certainly bring more expenses than profit, so it is reasonable to think that the club will react. One thing is for sure, the club has mobilized its legal team to strike back and fight its way out from the suspension.