Manchester City fans fear worst as fight to shelve fraud charges fails
A Guardian Football column from a lifelong supporter argues three years of legal wrangling have failed to spare Manchester City from more than 100 financial fraud charges.
Manchester City's attempts to have the Premier League's financial fraud charges thrown out on legal grounds have failed after three years of wrangling, according to a Guardian Football column by long-time supporter Simon Hattenstone.
The piece describes the club as "bang to rights" after what it calls a filibustering effort that has now run its course, leaving the more than 100 charges first disclosed in 2023 still to be answered.
Those charges followed a Premier League investigation into financial fair play that was launched in 2018, according to the column.
Hattenstone traces the fanbase's unease back to 2008, when the Thai businessman Thaksin Shinawatra's 15-month ownership of the club ended abruptly after more than £1bn of his assets were frozen.
Sheikh Mansour of the UAE took over shortly afterwards, but City were in the relegation zone by that December despite the new owner's wealth, the column notes.
It was around that period, Hattenstone writes, that supporters began singing a version of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine with the line "City's going down with a billion in the bank" - a song that has stuck ever since.
The columnist calls the pattern of self-sabotage amid apparent success "Cityitis", pointing out that the club went on to win trophy after trophy even as the chant persisted.
He writes that the chant grew louder when the financial fair play investigation began in 2018, and louder again once the scale of the charges - more than 100 - became clear in 2023.
With the legal route to dismissing the case now closed, according to the column, Hattenstone expects the same defiant, sardonic singing to intensify rather than fade among City's support.
The Guardian Football piece is written from a fan's perspective rather than as a formal report on the charges themselves, but it reflects a mood among supporters that the club's long-running legal defence has reached its limit.