Football Daily | Manchester City lace up their gloves ready for another round. Bring your dinner

Seven days after leaking out, the Manchester City saga has become a flood. Peace in our time has disappeared into the distance as football jurisprudence’s longest-running case enters Defcon 1 lawfare. Football Daily is duty bound by its learned friends in the legal department who gamely pick through this cheery teatime email before it reaches you, to say that City continue to deny all charges [we don’t necessarily need this but we’re happy to remain the butt of the joke – Football Daily Lawyers]. Though that also serves as a statement of the bleeding obvious. Club operatives and associates have employed not so much a double but a nonuple-down. The expected appeal has now been lodged by City. The statement was as you’d expect: “The club is innocent of the accusations made by the Premier League and a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence exists in support of all of its positions, relating to this case.”

The challenge to the Premier League’s published, contested verdict has already reached the levels of bringing your dinner to the fight. City’s key sponsor, Etihad Airways, is getting involved, with reports suggesting it is appointing a law firm that received a “most feared” industry gong five years in a row to state its case. Yikes! Even Pep Guardiola only managed four titles on the bounce. These days Guardiola is global ambassador for the City Football Group. As such, he has already joined Liam Gallagher and Curly Watts actor Kevin Kennedy in fighting from the blue corner on social media disgraces boiling with militant fans arguing points of commercial law while decrying “the Red Cartel”.

With each hour has come a plot twist in the fight against the verdict that unblinking club suit Ferran Soriano described via video link to staff as a mere “opinion”, which fed into a “Premier League conspiracy theory”. Contrary to previous pushing back – since 2008 – against City being depicted as a state-owned entity on the grounds that Sheikh Mansour’s ownership was as a private individual, came the revelation the money inflating City’s sponsorship coffers came not via Mansour’s investment vehicle but the Abu Dhabi state government. This, say the legal experts – and social media disgrace sleuths – is likely to form “the comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence” that City’s people argue is the winning hand. The original published verdict – if redacted, sans appendices – has already rejected that angle as “untrue”. Awkward. Further stirring of the hotpot: on Thursday, the UK government’s treasury committee asked tax authorities what action will be taken in response to the verdict’s findings.

All rather complicated, to the lawyers the spoils. And from the soft power of owning a football club, the harsh realities of geopolitics have entered the chat. Prime minister Andy Burnham has had No 10 Downing Street wonks issuing two clarifications of his initial public utterings on the City affair. Everton Andy’s Manchesterism involved key partnerships with the same Abu Dhabi state government that now admits funding the club found guilty on 100-plus Premier League charges. Added to that, reports of potential political pressure on the UK government from Abu Dhabi, a key trading partner, and calls from the Liberal Democrats for Burnham to publish details of all his meetings with the club’s owners. Manchester City, so much to answer for.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I do think we could be kinder to each other. I chose to live back down here because I wanted to be on the ground, I wanted to be called a w@nker to my face. The [Geopolitics] World Cup [playoff defeat] moved, I just felt the shift … look, I am a strong person, I think we all are, but it’s the people around me I’m conscious of. It’s just society. What are we? Eight prime ministers in the space of 11 years? It’s nuts … we’re such a small country, why can’t we have each other’s backs? Why don’t we look after each other more? The others can go at us. We’re too quick [to criticise]” – Craig Bellamy had a few things to get off his chest after Wales’s 2-1 win over Norway.

FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS

In the absence of a more august body tackling the issue, may I be so bold as to suggest both an expansion, and a revision of the much missed Gareth Bale Scale, given the state of our long-ago once ‘beautiful game’ (and an overlong international break). Thus: Infantino, Manchester City, Southampton, VAR, Argentina. In this topsy-turvy world, top, is of course bottom, or thereabouts” – Michael Lloyd.

I am struggling to think of any other jurisprudence where the true victims of the crime (the fans) are also the victims of the punishment. As Spanish Football Daily would say, siempre pagan justos por pecadores” – Mark Brookes.

Having nothing better to do this evening, I knocked up a little Python program to replay the results of several ‘tainted’ seasons, to see what effect might be had from removing Manchester City’s results. I got a hit for 2010-11 where Blackpool, who finished second from bottom and were relegated, would have actually come fourth from bottom had there been no City games. Look, I know it doesn’t really make any sense, my doing this, but still intriguing” – John Guthrie.

Re: yesterday’s Football Daily. As one of Cristiano Ronaldo’s greatest advocates, I’m really delighted to see Portugal struggling without the mighty one. What? Eh? Oh?” – Martyn Shapter.

If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day goes to … John Guthrie (for the best use of time). Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here.

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