The City case should be a starting point for naming and understanding the ways in which football has been colonised by economic and political power and how we might resist them.
By David Goldblatt , author of The Ball is Round and ‘Reboot Fifa‘ advisory board member
That Manchester City, its owners and executives, are very, very guilty is not now in question. Though the fact that the club and its lawyers have managed to keep this fact in abeyance for so long - despite, as they would say, the comprehensive and irrefutable evidence of their transgressions - is testament to both the legal power they have been able to mobilise and their astonishing barefaced cheek. They are not, however, the only guilty parties in this sorry affair, and it is worth recalling alongside City’s own malfeasance, their enablers and allies.
The Premier League, by which I mean both its chief executives and the rabble of owners and representatives that serve on its board, are guilty of the most breathtaking and unforgivable political naivety. First, in 2006 when they approved the sale of Manchester City to the then exiled Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawarata. And then, when they couldn’t stomach Shinawarta, they rushed through a no-questions asked sale in 2008 to Sheikh Mansour of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Yet even the most cursory understanding of Sheikh Mansour’s political and dynastic life, let alone a basic grasp of how politics works in the UAE, would have made it transparently clear that City was always an explicitly political project wired right to the heart of the UAE state. Between then and 2023, when the recent inquiry to City was launched, the Premier League entirely failed to regulate or investigate ...
You must be a subscriber to read this article
Already a subscriber? Log in here
Josimar is entirely dependent on our subscribers to tell the stories from football that matter. Become a subscriber today!
