Patrick Barclay: Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour knew the FFP rules so must accept punishment
If you put a 30mph limit on a stretch of road, and augment the clear signage with an intensive publicity campaign and then, having identified a few drivers who insist on blatantly exceeding it with 60mph dashes, sit them down and offer help in curbing the habit, and still they indulge in it, what are you supposed to do next? Abolish any speed limit, at whatever cost to pedestrians and the other road users who asked for it in the first place?
Manchester City’s posture in apparently opposing the heavy fine — estimated at between £39million and £49m — and Champions League squad restrictions imposed for a massive breach of the Financial Fair Play regulations is as ridiculous as some of the spending on players that caused them to exceed UEFA’s limit.
Sheikh Mansour and his advisers have known about FFP since they took over the club from Thaksin Shinawatra in 2008. They knew about it when they bought David Silva and Yaya Toure and didn’t let it prevent them from trying to outbid Manchester United for Robin van Persie in the middle of the FFP assessment period, even though they were already overpaying two other former Arsenal players, Gael Clichy and Samir Nasri.
While you can say what you like about FFP and what it might do for the dream factor in football — not as much harm as some claim but that’s an argument for another time — it exists and it’s constitutional, not a wild idea that UEFA president Michel Platini has been able to impose single-handedly.
It is also designed to encourage building from the roots up and City need no instruction in this, having embraced the principle enshrined in the exemptions for infrastructure and youth development by building an education complex of the highest standard. So they deserve the sort of success that should be confirmed on Sunday. But they cannot be above football’s international law.
