Shroud waving . Feels a bit desperate to me . There is a tiny hint of back peddling though . First time I've seen an open acknowledgement of a client based system ....although he still manages to distort City's determination to challenge this legally , so that it looks like we are the devil incarnate . I really don't know how he thinks a club suffering a decade of smears and an enormous trial by media in the last couple of years should be behaving . By staying in our place perhaps ?
Well, no-one can doubt that City did what they did for their own benefit. And no-one can really doubt that City are being aggressive in the follow-up because they want the Etihad deal finalised and want to stop the PL manipulating their way out of it.
But, on the other hand, no-one can doubt they were/are right to do it because the rules were unlawful.
I don't think we should shy away from any of that, nor should we need to.
Other than that, it was a typical Guardian piece. Presumably he had to put his socks and sandals on to wring his hands so much and so often. But, personally, I don't mind articles worrying about the future of football (let's face it, we all do it for various reasons), although the Guardian and the Independent have been doing it for a decade (coincidentally) and the PL, as he says, is as strong now as it has ever been.
Some of his points, though, were ridiculous.
His point about taking a short-term view to the detriment of the future of the game, for example. If he wants to point his finger at the people who do that, he shouldn't be pointing it at the Etihad or St James's Park, he will be pointing it at the venture capitalists who want to get maximum value extraction with minimum investment or the clubs influencing the PL to enact unlawful rules almost on a whim. He has a point about short-termism, but to imply Mansour should be included in that criticism is just ridiculous. His whole business strategy can be described as long-termism.
That point stuck out when I read it. There were more, but I'm not going to read it again to list them.
www.theguardian.com
