Pep Guardiola was greeted by three of his most trusted allies at Manchester City on Sunday evening.
City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, sporting director Txiki Begiristain and CEO Ferran Soriano all gathered in the bowels of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to discuss the latest storm to blow over the club with the manager. As they met for a familiar post-game debrief, little did the four of them know that in just 15 hours time dissecting the bones of defeat to Spurs would be the least of their worries.
There are some within the club who dream of this bombshell news - the Premier League charging the club with over 100 breaches of its rules over a 14-year period with penalties that could go as far as expulsion from the league - as the chance to finally dance into the sunlit uplands of innocence, with the commission having the opportunity to eradicate not only any blame lain at City's door but also the idea that they have only got away because the claims are time-barred, i.e. happened too long ago to be contested now.
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That was the takeaway from some skeptics after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned City's Champions League ban a few years ago, and the fact that the Jamie Carraghers of this world have jumped on City's alleged misdemeanours at the earliest point shows how little City - and three independent judges - were believed by those desperate to find wrongdoing. Even if the most optimistic people at the Etihad are right, it will take years more of mud being slung in their direction before they are able to claim a big victory.
The club's public statement signalled its intent to dig in, citing the "comphrensive body of irrefutable evidence" they have to support their position. They can also take confidence from their victory at CAS, with independent legal minds failing to agree with what UEFA wanted to be true.
Just as City cast doubt on the UEFA investigation, so too the Premier League motives have been questioned with the decision taking everyone by surprise as it was put out just before the imminent publication of a government White Paper on football governance that many expect to conclude that the league cannot effectively keep its clubs in order. After taking four years to conclude the investigation, it was surprisingly shoddy from the Premier League to slap a statement on their website accusing the Blues of such serious crimes while failing to successfully point people in the direction of the relevant rules; the website was updated over the course of the day to quietly amend the botched numbers.
However, the league were far slicker in catching City unaware as they put their statement out while a call to the club was ongoing. Where their reply to UEFA could be almost instant, here it took hours for a response from the club to come after being caught cold.
As the battle returns to the private quarters of courtrooms and lawyers' chambers to determine the truth, Guardiola and his players must attempt to put that all to one side and focus on a very public title race. The manager will likely have several uncomfortable press conferences coming up given the unwillingness of the club hierarchy to take questions, enough to make him long for someone to ask him if Erling Haaland is a problem or what Phil Foden has to do to get into the team.
City will not back down, and their fans will support them for it just as they did UEFA. It is a massive fight between two enormous organisations though, and as they both square up to each other it is hard to see much daylight in the immediate and near future after a grim contest turned even uglier.
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