All Things Sports

Hello, welcome back to All Things Sports! Currently Manchester City sit 2nd in the Premier League, a position with just under half the season remaining. After a rocky start to the year involving numerous shocking results in the league, it seems as if they are back to their best after winning the Club World Cup and getting superstar(and one of my personal favorite players) Kevin De Bruyne back from injury. However, off the field, things are significantly worse for the Sky Blues as they are currently dealing with 115 charges of violating the English Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability rules. Yes, you read that right. A team known for exorbitant spending over the last decade has now been charged with over 100 breaches of financial regulations. 

However, this story isn’t just about Manchester City because they aren’t the only ones that are facing these issues. Along with them, Chelsea, another team known for exorbitant spending, Everton(same situation), and Nottingham Forest. All 4 of these teams are being charged with violating the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules, which state that a team can not operate at more than a loss of 105 million pounds over a rolling 3 year period. Everton have already been found guilty and deducted 10 points from this season’s point total, a decision that is currently being appealed. It landed them in the relegation zone, but a strong run of form under manager Sean Dyche has seen them rise out of it. Nottingham Forest were recently charged, and they have admitted to being in breach of the rules due to a massive spending spree on over 40 players not being balanced out in time. This case seems unclear because they were open about their violation for the 2 months that they were breaking the rules. They needed to sell a star player, but they were simply waiting for his value to go up, which it did. Still, it seems all but likely that they will also face some punishment, either in a fine or points deduction. 

However, the main stories here are City and Chelsea, two of the sport’s biggest clubs. The charges against City and Chelsea are well documented and have been around for more than a year now, but the lack of action by the governing bodies is baffling. How have two teams known to overspend, especially with Chelsea spending close to a BILLION pounds over 1 YEAR, not been punished? Both teams have used this exorbitant spending to win trophies both domestically and abroad(Chelsea won most recently in 2021 and City won everything last year). This is where the story really gets interesting because both teams are suspected to have numerous violations and if the same punishment that was applied to Everton for 1 violation(10 points) gets applied to City for 115 violations, it would mean City would lose over 1000 points. For reference that would be enough to get them relegated almost 15 times over(calculations are not exact). Yet, according to the Premier League, nothing has been done because of the sheer number of charges that they face. That’s right, they are saying that there’s too many charges to quickly move forward with the case, but if anything this should be grounds to expedite it further. That is because many trophies are on the line including multiple league titles, yet the rich clubs in City and Chelsea seem to be getting off scot-free right now. Something needs to change here. If City do not face substantial punishment like I, along with most of the football world, suspect, it would be disastrous for the game. It would send a message that you can break the rules as long as you are a big team, which would be horrible for the game. There needs to be some semblance of equity and accountability and it needs to come from the Premier League as UEFA has already failed. Both Chelsea and City need to be an example to the rest of the footballing world that breaking the rules has consequences and titles need to be won fairly by players bought within the rules, not by lawyers defending players who were bought outside of the rules. That’s why every football fan needs to be following this case because it represents a precedent-setting moment as the wealth gap between big and small clubs continues to grow with TV revenues growing. We need to do everything we can to bridge the gap and it starts here. 

So right now the answer to the title is probably not, but it definitely should be yes, for the good of the beautiful game.