Man City’s bubble of victimhood has their fans drowning in a sense of injustice. It’s time for them to stand up to their interloper owners and declare: ‘Enough’, writes IAN HERBERT

The abuse – wheelbarrow loads of it – was hurled last week by Manchester City fans at those who had the audacity to challenge the idea that an overwhelmingly dominant force in British football would go to court to dismantle the Premier League’s rules and to secure the right to unrestricted access. expenditure.

“Another pathetic article,” declared Steve Jones, a fan “awaiting” my response to his comments about Manchester City “destroying this cartel.” (So ​​there you go, Steve). Dave Temerson will apparently be sending the boys around.

Nothing unusual there. The weaponization of fans means that almost everything wealthy owners say or do is defensible these days. A friend had a brick stuck through one of his windows after a series of pieces a few years ago calmly and rigorously dissected Manchester City’s complicated relationship with financial expenditure rules.

In the real world – beyond this bubble of victimhood and the ridiculous belief that four-time champions City are somehow the ‘little club’ fighting back against the established elite set against them – most people with one view on this subject is the idea of ​​a Gulf state hiring expensive lawyers to ensure that its own companies can channel unlimited money to the club, through ‘sponsorship deals’.

So what would it take for the fans, drowning in a sense of injustice, to recognize what a terrible image Abu Dhabi is creating for their club?

There is certainly a line that, according to supporters, should not be crossed. When City’s owners joined the short-lived European Super League a few years ago, there were protests. “Fans, football owners, in that order,” read one of the banners. “Fire the board,” another demanded.

Football will not be moved to a European dimension this time, but success in the legal case that is currently being conducted in a shroud of secrecy, in the usual way in Abu Dhabi, would leave the Premier League in the exclusive domain of a group of nation states. owners, with an unimaginable amount of money to spend.

Does it really take a giant leap of imagination to see where this is all going? A future where City’s lawyers have won this court case and quickly announced a renewed sponsorship deal with Etihad Airways worth, to pick a random figure, £500 million. A future where, with all barriers to spending removed, City put together a new-look European squad on wages of £500,000 per week as standard.

A team so much better than anyone else that most clubs come to regard a trip to City as so unwinnable and the Etihad games are reduced to an even more foregone conclusion. A future where the fascination and intrigue of the game fades into a mist of dull, sky-blue hegemony, with City v Newcastle – Abu Dhabi v Saudi – the pinnacle of the competition. Ten consecutive titles and counting. How good will that kind of glory really feel?

The mid-sized clubs will, as one owner told me last week, feel ‘what’s the point?’ of trying to compete, should City win the current arbitration. He noted that the Championship would appear to be the better option for supporters in that future. If the EFL’s marketers have any sense, a courtroom victory for City would be an opportunity for some promotion from the second tier as the league where the ‘real competition’ still lives and breathes.

So many of the PR lines that City spend on their lawsuits leave you with your head in your hands. The club claims it has ‘irrefutable evidence’ that 115 charges in the Premier League for breaching spending rules are false. While 35 of those charges relate to non-cooperation. When it proved so difficult to get the necessary documents from City, the Premier League went to court in 2022 and started an arbitration process to obtain them.

But the details of the Associated Party Transaction case are actually slightly different. They reveal an ownership that is barely able to recognize the competitive, soulful and proud club that Manchester City actually was before the Abu Dhabis came through the door. The current rules penalize clubs that have a “lower profile sporting history,” the 160-page legal document complains, and appears to put City – a club with such an immense past – in that number.

The city’s owners have not always projected this aggressive, reprehensible, classless impression on the outside world. There was a time, in the years after they arrived in East Manchester, when they brought modernity and imagination to British football. Under Brian Marwood’s leadership, they modernized the player acquisition model, buying players like David Silva and Yaya Toure for what, in retrospect, seems like a number. They built a training ground and academy like no other. They also rebuilt parts of the area near their land. They were loved.

But somewhere in the midst of the subsequent drive for global domination – driven by a charmless CEO, Ferran Soriano – it was decided that success would mean an open declaration of war on the competition in which they have the privilege of playing.

Little seems to be able to stand in the way of City or their lawyers now, although it would be a statement as supporters, knowing that the thrill of competition outweighs the momentary satisfaction of silverware, and that the wider community of the game is something above all else to cherish. , could stand up to these invaders and declare, “Enough.”

Benaud’s story is a reminder of the cricket divide

For the beach this summer, or wherever you want to be, I recommend ‘Richie Benaud’s Blue Suede Shoes’ – a retelling of the 1961 Ashes tour, based on the decisive fourth Test at Old Trafford Test. There are so many contemporary echoes, not least the anxiety the sport felt at the time about the need to score quickly to retain audiences. There are also wonderful details of the concerns that could fill columns like this. Some disapproved of Ted Dexter’s tendency to chew gum in the crease.

But the series and Test are a filter through which David Kynaston and Harry Ricketts’ book (Bloomsbury £22) exposes the elitism of English public school cricket, placing stiff house captain Peter May alongside Benaud – cricketer, popular leader and once crime reporter. on The Sun in Sydney.

While today’s England side would not be plagued by the indecisiveness that befell May’s men in Manchester that summer, we are still fighting for the kind of Australian meritocracy that brought Benaud and his blue suede boots to prominence.

The authors conclude with a quote from last year’s 317-page ECB-driven Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket report. “We were shocked by the class differences,” the report’s authors stated, two days before England took the field against Australia with nine privately trained players in their squad.

Sitting raducanu is not an encouraging experience

We’re all longing for Emma Raducanu to rediscover the simple, straightforward game she brought to Wimbledon three summers ago.

Sitting in front of her in Nottingham on Monday as she described how tennis balls are now often too heavy was not an encouraging experience.