Sportswashing and financial doping – City’s journey to the top

The clock is ticking towards the third extra minute at the Etihad Stadium. Manchester City need one more goal to win the club’s first Premier League title. Then Sergio Agüero steps forward and pushes in 3-2 against QPR. The whole arena explodes.

The goal, which celebrated its tenth anniversary a few days ago, was just the beginning of Manchester City’s dominance in English top football. When the Premier League is decided on Sunday, it will probably be City again as champions.

But these more than ten years have not only been filled with late goals, records and titles. Behind the success is a belligerent state with a lack of human rights. According to Amnesty’s latest report, the United Arab Emirates restricts freedom of expression, conducts unfair trials, lacks equality for women and oppresses LGBTQ people.

Manchester City is one of modern football’s clearest examples of the now well-known concept of sportswashing – when a country clears its reputation with the help of sporting success.

But how has the club, under the rule of Sheikh Mansour and Abu Dhabi United Group, ended up where it is today?

2008

– Five years ago, I did not even know that there were two teams from Manchester.

Dani Alve’s quote from 2014 is admittedly historyless – Manchester City was founded as early as 1880, has been described as “the team of the people” and took two league titles in the middle of the 20th century – but in the 00s City was relatively unknown outside the islands and fought for its survival, both on and off the field.

The club was owned by the former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and it did not work at all, just ask the then coach Sven-Göran “Svennis” Eriksson.

Shinawatra’s assets in his home country were frozen and he quickly lost confidence and control in Manchester City. The assets were frozen due to a prison sentence after his time as prime minister of Thailand, when more than 2,000 people were killed in his fight against drugs.

The first of September 2008 Manchester City gets a new owner. Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and his investment firm Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) are taking over the club for a price of between 150 and 210 million pounds.

Mansour is relatively unknown, never does any interviews and is rarely seen in public. He has two wives, six children and is the brother of Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince and President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Mansour is described as the face of City, while the Crown Prince’s right hand man, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, is the man in control. Only 33-year-old Al Mubarak is appointed chairman of the club.

With oil money in his wallet, City, during the last day of the transfer window, set out in search of new acquisitions and at the last second, the brass Robinho is presented, bought for the record sum of 32.5 million pounds.

In the subsequent home match, City supporters with sheik-like equipment can be seen and no major discussion about the concept of sportswashing is carried out in the media.

2009–2012

City fire coach Mark Hughes after a season under the new owners, appoint Roberto Mancini and recruit players for almost four billion over two seasons. Names like David Silva, Mario Balotelli and Yaya Touré are brought in. In May 2012, thanks to Agüero’s late goal, the club wins its first Premier League title.

The new owners are investing in a new training facility. It is named Etihad Campus. The arena, Eastlands Stadium, is also named after Abu Dhabi’s airline Etihad. The name change is worth SEK 4 billion over a ten-year period. A deal that over time is negotiated up to a higher amount.

In retrospect, however, it has been revealed that these billions did not come from the airline, but directly from the state. Something that is illegal and for which City will be punished. More on that later.

2013–2014

Following the first PL title, the club appoints a new CEO of Barcelona’s former vice-president Ferran Soriano. Together with Al Mubarak and PR guy Simon Pearce, Soriano thinks beyond just Manchester and England.

Soriano talks about football being like Disney – the sport is entertainment and the clubs are global entertainment producers. The trio therefore plans to build a football empire with the help of the company City Football Group (CFG).

Through CFG, which is founded by Sheikh Mansour, City will be able to control more clubs and create their own ecosystem in the world of football. By 2022, the company will own ten clubs across five continents, for example in New York, Melbourne and Bombay.

Some clubs are owned almost exclusively for publicity purposes – that is, to win supporters and commercial partners around the world. If you stay in Mumbai City, you stay in Manchester City. Other clubs are good for player turnover – they can contribute talent that is later resold or exchanged within the group.

In May 2014, Manchester City will be English champions again, this time under Manuel Pellegrini. In addition to the plan, Abu Dhabi concludes an agreement with the local authority in Manchester for the construction of 830 new homes in, among other places, the Manchester district of Ancoats. The agreement gives even more trust to the light blue supporters and has been used as an argument for the owners to give back to the community.

But the same year, City were punished by Uefa for violating the Financial fair play, FFP, when, despite large negative results, they recruited players for millions of pounds. The club will be fined half a billion kronor and forced to lose its Champions League squad.

2015–2019

In the summer of 2015, City broke their transfer record when Kevin De Bruyne joined from Wolfsburg for 55 million pounds. Manuel Pellegrini takes the team to a semi-final in the Champions League, but does not manage to win the league and the coach has to leave the club at the end of the season.

The replacement is already ready. His name is Josep “Pep” Guardiola and he comes from three straight league titles with Bayern Munich in Germany.

During Guardiola’s second season in City, the club breaks the league record with 100 points and defends the title the following year, despite a close battle with Liverpool. In total, City spend almost two billion kroner just on defenders during Guardiola’s first time at the club.

At the same time, there are accusations of financial doping. In November 2018, the site Football Leaks leaked documents showing that City, with the help of Uefa, circumvented Financial fair play. City must have enforced sponsorship agreements, avoided tax rules and been involved in third-party ownership. In 2019, Uefa will start an investigation against City that may risk being suspended from the Champions League.

2020–2022

– The supporters can be sure of two things. The first is that the allegations are false. And the second is that we will do everything we can to prove it, says Ferran Soriano in a statement on the club’s website in February 2020.

Manchester City have just received the verdict and it is not gracious. The club is forced to pay a fine of SEK 300 million and is suspended from playing in the Champions League – the tournament that the club most of all wants to win – for two seasons.

At this point is sportswashing is an accepted concept and more things indicate that City is far from independent of the regime in Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates. Although Abu Dhabi United Group is owned by the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, City and Sheikh Mansour have always claimed that the company is private and has nothing to do with the state.

But the leaked documents and e-mail conversations, which the German newspaper Der Spiegel has revealed, show something else. Among other things, board member Simon Pearce is said to have asked Omar Awad, CFO of a government agency in Abu Dhabi, to transfer money from Abu Dhabi United Group to the club.

In addition, Pearce is said to have had his own e-mail address in the government agencies’ system and e-mailed Andrew Widdowson, CFO of City 2012, who has since distributed Abu Dhabi money under sponsorship agreements with the airline Etihad and the telecommunications company Etisalat.

But Manchester City are appealing UEFA’s verdict to the Sports Arbitration Court, Cas and the punishment are eased. City may play the Champions League and the fine will be reduced to SEK 100 million.

However, fans have to keep waiting for the coveted CL title. Pep Guardiola’s team travels to Real Madrid after an unlikely semi-final. Instead, the light blues look to be content with another PL victory, which will most likely be combed home on Sunday. A victory against Aston Villa is enough. The title is such cases the sixth in total under the rule of Abu Dhabi and Sheikh Mansour.

Since the purchase of the club, the owner is estimated to have spent the equivalent of 17 billion Swedish kronor and the club is according to Forbes currently worth almost 40 billion kronor.

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