What Should Never Be
In the last few years, I have never felt anything but disrespect and contempt for Manchester City Football Club. If any of our loyal readers remember, we had a short (long) piece about the absolute idiotic and illogical transfer dealings of Sir Alex Ferguson’s noisy neighbors. I bashed them throughout last summer’s window and during the season. Nonetheless, they qualified for the Champions League, and they even beat out Arsenal to the third spot in the Premier League to qualify AUTOMATICALLY.
As I watched the results come in on the final day of this past season, I fell back in my futon, smacked my head on the arm rest because the pillow had moved, no doubt moved by God just to prove his point, and realized that the Evil Empire had begun to form. If City qualifying for the UCL was the proverbial shot of the massive space station nearing completion, their win in the FA Cup final was the violent destruction Alderaan.
Man City’s rise from perpetual relegation candidates to Champions League qualifiers is extraordinary, unprecedented, but above all, artificial and damaging to the sport. Through 2008, they were a mid-table team at best, even with the cash injections from Thailand’s outlaw Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and even initially with the current ownership, the Abu Dhabi Group. However, it was after Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour took full stranglehold of the club that big time players started pouring in. Robinho, Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor, Kolo Toure, and Gareth Barry. Ok, maybe Gareth Barry isn’t that big time, but the others, definitely.
After several years of overpaying rival clubs for players, overpaying players themselves to match their wage demands with their inflated egos, and dumping surplus “superstars,” City finally constructed a machine capable of filling up a lot of space on the field and making a lot of back passes which would eventually lead to Carlos Tevez outworking the opposition’s fatigued defenders and snatching a scrappy goal. They consolidated, they spent their 300 foot-yacht-loads of cash, and they clawed their way into the promised land of the Champions League.
This summer, as with the previous two, the Evil Empire have kept busy in the transfer market, bringing in a few key mercenaries of the highest quality, albeit only willing to play for the largest paycheck, and also getting rid of extra baggage. So far, they’ve bought Stefan Savic from Partizan, Gael Clichy from Arsenal, and most notably, Sergio ‘Kun’ Aguero from Atletico Madrid. On the other side of the market, they smartly (always a surprise in the fantasy world of City) got rid of Jo, shipped off Shay Given and returned to Germany the unsettled and underused Jerome Boateng. As is recent tradition, they’ve also been linked with more big time buys including a swap of Carlos Tevez for Maicon of Inter and a 20 million pound deal for Arsenal’s Samir Nasri.
On the eve of the Community Shield against Manchester United, the tasty appetizer of a match to get everyone primed for the start of the Premier League next weekend, what does all of this City business mean to the footballing world? It means that Sheikh Mansour and Co, with pockets full of oil drenched legal tender that’s more than likely used to fund people, organizations, and causes more unsavory than even his club captain (Tevez, not Kompany), have taken a massive step forward in their goal of dominating European football. They continue to inflate transfer fees and pay astronomical salaries never once imagined for even the top players. Even though UEFA, an organization with lax financial restrictions at best, have tried to introduce “Financial Fair Play” to rein in a club like Manchester City, they’ve failed. City continue to skew the economic realities of football with the Abu Dhabi Group’s money and it will only lead to more clubs attempting to keep pace with dollar figures in stratospheres they never knew existed. Spending like that, assuming it’s not bank rolled by an entire oil rich nation, could potentially ruin clubs all because the competitive nature of these organizations is to keep up with competition. The tricky part comes when the competition doesn’t have to follow the same rules as everyone else.
Moral of the story? I’ve become so disgusted with City that I, and Arsenal fan, will be rooting for United this weekend, and every other team playing against City throughout the season. For those who will yell, “Man City are bringing parity to the EPL,” I will say BS. Parity cannot be bought. Parity is when Blackpool stayed with all of the big guns last season. Parity is Stoke City and Birmingham playing in Europe and no club in the league having an easy game all season. I’m convinced Ronald Reagan was warning us about Man City and what the Evil Empire has become eludes all established rules and understanding in modern football, and I hope that tomorrow and the rest of the season, no opponent let’s them be.
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[...] who we’re convinced don’t exist. So as not to be banished by the FA, they keep Eastlands fully operational with its own dummy Man City squad. Not surprisingly, they play better football than the real team [...]
thesuperrookie
285 days ago
While I was reading this piece I was trying to figure out whom the author supported. My mind was racing through the clubs; Stoke City, Birmingham, Southampton, Brighton-Albion etc…
Then I get to the part and I see that the support is behind Arsenal.
At which point this just became an article of jealously and not a realistic attempt to bring financial integrity and parity to the Premiership.
City is just the 5th member to the outlandish spending party. Arsenal was there long before the oil money showed up.
Pasha
285 days ago
First off, thanks for reading.
I can honestly say that this whole write up was not out of jealousy. It’s genuine disgust with City’s actions and how it can hurt football. Even though I openly admit my Arsenal bias, I’m not even close to proud of our ties with Emirates, however Arsenal’s Emirates sponsorship deal is just that, a deal. The Dubai gov’t doesn’t have a controlling stake in the club. The govt’s money isn’t in the pocket of anyone who has a controlling stake. Am I jealous that back in the day, Roman Abramovich decided to hide Putin’s money at Stamford Bridge instead of Highbury…maybe, but I prefer Arsenal being self-sustaining in the long run.
As for the invitees at the outlandish spending party, you can’t possibly put even United or Chelsea at the same level as City. They’ve pissed away Robinho, Adebayor, Bellamy, Santa Cruz and Bridge losing 20, 25, 14, 17.5, and 12 million pounds, respectively. Though United are in mega-debt, a status which I personally think is overblown, and Chelsea still rely on an oligarch, at least United are still relatively decent overall about trying to balance their buying with selling players. In the last 10 years, United had 1 season when they lost 40 mil, but otherwise, they’re close to even in that dept. Chelsea are definitely more guilty, but they have a recent winning tradition that some players can use as an excuse…what do City have in that regard? Liverpool? A lot like United, they’ve been close to breaking even in the last 10 years, though they’ve lost more, mostly through Benitez’s shitty buys. The bottom line with these three is that they will never be in unimaginable trouble because they’re global brands and global brands tend to be pretty damn good at getting money; Man City are far from global.
Now, Arsenal. The most they’ve spent on any single player, EVER, is 15 million pounds. That was the cost for both Arse-shaven and Nasri. Over the last ten years, in the years that they lost money between buying and selling it was 61 million pounds. In the years they’ve ended in the black, they’ve gained 52 million pounds. That’s 9 million pounds TOTAL on transfers over ten years. If you told Khaldoon al-Mubarak that figure, his head would explode. That’s not even half of what they lost on Robinho alone. Arsenal’s debts are legitimate investments made in the club, most notably moving into the (groan) Emirates Stadium. They are one of very few teams that have stayed at the top by responsibly financing their sporting ambitions.
I, of course, looked the other way when Tottenham went further in the Champions League than my Gunners, but it was impressive nonetheless and I gave them props. I was near mental breakdown when Brum took us down in the Carling Cup, but I had to admit that the better team won and we were pathetic. I have no problem with other teams breaking into the top four, even Man City. However, what doesn’t sit well with me (and this is an understatement) is that City have ostensibly bought their way into that prestigious group.
Sorry for the long response, just wanted to hopefully properly respond and show that it’s not just my City hating. Trust me, I had to edit a lot of that out otherwise I’d sound like I was on an even bigger milk crate.
noonoo
284 days ago
all i have to say is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcuAw77J8_Y