Hard to know where all this ends - perhaps when the kids / new supporters who've watched from Aguero to Haaland over the past ten years start coming of age, we maybe have a larger social media fanbase, so it won't pay as handsomely to slag the club off day and night.
In the meantime, City supporters - who are certainly more knowledgably than the average football journalist on FFP matters - have to endure the constant articles, containing some truths, many inaccuracies and some complete fabrications. It does grind you down. When your 9 year old kid comes home from school and he's been called a 'cheat' for supporting City, you begin to wonder who the real victims are in this, and what the point of it is exactly.
So, well read, well informed, and mature, City supporters, engage with these journalists, attempt to highlight some of the nuance, and hypocrisy involved in just targeting City constantly. In a world that's going to shit, and getting worse, there may be some more important things to write about, than if Mancini got a Christmas bonus 13 years ago, or if the investment in City is partly about making money, or advertising Abu Dhabi, or soft power in a shifting geo-political landscape, or a genuine love of football. Personally, I think a mixture of all four. But there's nuance involved there - we can't have that now.. Just shout 115!!! over and over, and ignore Fly Emirates, Visit Rwanda, Saudi Telecom, Standard Chartered, AXA, gambling, clubs with a billion in debt passing FFP, La Liga clubs mortgaging their future income, Chelsea amortising players over 8 years, and on and on and on.
These City supporters attempt to highlight how strange it is that a football club who have been found guilty of nothing, are pilloried constantly by people with a limited understanding of the rules, who have a refusal to believe that a hugely successful and brilliantly organised club could make legitimate money.
These supporters get sneered at by - mainly - Guardian writers, but plenty of others - for being thick, brain washed, sports washed, for refusing to agree 100% with them. The almighty educated football journalists, running what's very obviously an editorial agenda to hammer us at every turn, as soon as the final whistle blows in many cases. Then they act shocked when they get a bit of grief at an airport or ground, all innocent - having gas lit a support base for years.
However - even a polite disagreement / conversation can seem threatening, when you're outnumbered by annoyed people, so they really shouldn't be approached, or photographed, or shouted at. It's not on, no matter what they wrote. Ignore.
Then, maybe most irritating of all, they get told that they didn't really feel anything - it was like a trip to the Grand Canyon.. the bucket list.. soulless.. empty.. hollow.. predictable. They booed the piano player (WTF?)... They get told how they felt, and if they actually did feel anything, it was all meaningless and manipulated anyway, they're shills - the dummies of a 'state'. A country not as good as England or America - both of which are perfect. Neither of which sell billions in arms and property to the Middle East and buy billions worth of oil.
I think we got called vermin, or rats, too at some stage, by an actual professional journalist. Don't remember or care which one.
Then you get the rank hypocrisy of the likes of Ronay, who wrote an entire book twerking for Putin and the Russian World Cup. Panja, who interviewed Mbappe but was too cowardly to mention Qatar. The list goes on..
It's hard not to get wound up by it, it's hard to just keep saying to yourself "it's bitterness, it's spite, it changes nothing", however the best course of action is still to try as hard as possible to ignore them. Reaction is what they want really. Any kind. Then they can paint City supporters in an even worse light. It's addictive, reading their stuff, and getting annoyed by it. I suspect it's designed that way - Twitter is certainly designed for rage-engage, to drag you down the rabbit hole of annoyance, until you realise your morning has gone.
I'm going to work harder to just roll my eyes and move on quickly to something else. They don't actually deserve your attention. They don't have the depth of knowledge of some of the excellent posters on here - Prestwich Blue, Project River, Petrusha, Tolmie and all the rest... read their stuff instead.
