Football’s latest scandal inspires apathy rather than anger

That is dangerous for the game

The problem with Britain, Andy Burnham told his Labour Party faithful last month, is that “shareholders never lose and the public never win.” Yet now Mr Burnham is in trouble because his favourite shareholder lost too much. Last week the English Premier League found that, under its Emirati owners, Manchester City, a top football club, vastly understated financial losses through “sham” deals, allowing the club to outspend its rivals.

Last week the English Premier League found that, under its Emirati owners, Manchester City, a top football club, vastly understated financial losses through “sham” deals, allowing the club to outspend its rivals. (Unsplash)

Most corporate scandals that become political ones go off with a bang. An oil spill or bank run are as unexpected as they are shocking. But the City affair surprises few. (Unsurprisingly, the club denies wrongdoing.) The league’s case was sparked by documents leaked back in 2018, about deals struck not long after Sheikh Mansour, an Emirati vice-president, bought the club in 2008. These have already been the subject of a case by Europe’s footballing authority that concluded in 2020. Rather than an outpouring of anger, the City affair inspires something far worse—apathy, about football, and about Britain.

“Isn’t my problem but theirs, probably,” said Roberto Mancini, the former City manager, of a second contract with a club in Abu Dhabi which allegedly boosted his earnings without hitting City’s bottom line. “Well, of course,” was the reaction of a British public accustomed to broken systems and whose expectations of those in power have been much diminished. The shock is not at the idea that a big part of the nation’s commercial and cultural life was based on cheating, but that a body with any authority would call it out. Mr Burnham, for his part, now finds himself at odds with investors he thought were good lads: having poured money into Manchester when he was mayor, the Emiratis are reportedly planning to withhold it from Milton Keynes while he is prime minister.

The scandal could not have been better designed to make Britain miserable about the things it is good at. The Premier League is by far the richest and most entertaining football league in the world. The dispute is being settled in London, which remains the pre-eminent venue for global corporate arguments; its lawyers, presumably charging telephone-number fees for handling the City case, are about the only corner of the British economy keeping up with America. Banners hailing the lawyers representing football clubs have been unfurled on match day. Playing Lord Pannick in defence are you, mate? Hopefully Slaughter and May can sort out our attack before Christmas.

It matters little that Britain actually gets a good deal from its Gulf investors. When a country can no longer afford its own trophy assets, it is said to face a choice between noble ruin and ignoble foreign ownership. Stroll up Whitehall, the heart of the British state, and the choice appears starker. The Old War Office and Great Scotland Yard have been converted into smart hotels owned by international capital. Admiralty Arch is now a Waldorf Astoria, facing down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace as if to say: “You’re next!” Depressing enough, until you spot the alternative at the top of the street, which has been colonised by an often-changing cast of brightly lit candy-cum-souvenir-cum-vape shops. Britain is a nation of shopkeepers, and these shops are a grim symbol of the nation.

British football rejected such shabbiness in favour of riches from abroad. City is chaired by Khaldoon Al Mubarak, boss of an Abu Dhabi sovereign-wealth fund and Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Mr Burnham’s beloved Everton was owned by a Monaco-dwelling British-Iranian who made his name working with a Russian metal magnate (“the Toffees” passed to their current American owner in 2024, after nearly being bought by an investment firm which has since gone bankrupt). Last season Sir Keir Starmer’s Arsenal won the league playing at the Emirates Stadium. Newcastle United (apparently the favourite team of Sir Tony Blair) languished under Mike Ashley, a British retail billionaire, but has fared better under the Saudi sovereign-wealth fund.

Yet reason is no antidote to apathy, which is always cancerous in the end. If the League’s result starts to feel like a foregone conclusion, fans enamoured of the game but impassive about the tawdry business behind it may find it no more appealing than voting in an election whose results are already decided. The sanctions that might be placed on City will not turn the tide of indifference. Retroactively awarding its trophies to rival teams will give them nothing to celebrate. Throwing City out of the league will make the victories of their rivals a little less real until they return.

The club has appealed against the league’s findings, guaranteeing more legal argument—and more apathy. Only last year was the London arm of Lehman Brothers, the American bank that failed in 2008, finally wound up when all the claims against it were settled. Might the City scandal go on even longer? Lord Denning, one of England’s great 20th-century judges, wrote that sporting disputes are better left to the sports themselves, rather than the courts. Lord Sugar, one of England’s great 21st-century television businessmen, reckons that self-regulation has become ineffective: “the [Premier League] bosses need to have the balls to impose punishment NOW and implement it NOW.”

And did those feet in extra time

Apathy is not just a danger for Britain. This summer Gianni Infantino, the boss of FIFA, football’s global governing body, tried unsuccessfully to flog parts of the game to investors. That did cause an uproar. But Mr Infantino has also bestowed his organisation’s graces on Donald Trump, whose family’s business dealings, including those involving money from the Gulf, are now mostly met with apathy. Earlier in Mr Trump’s presidency, businessmen who worked with him tolerated the deals, arguing that deregulation was more important. Now few people mention them.

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