The greatest moment in Premier League history has been ruined. Sergio Aguero's dramatic winner against QPR to clinch Manchester City's first Premier League title in 2012 was fairytale stuff, with Martin Tyler's unforgettable commentary of "93.20 and Agueroooo!" lodged in our memories. The highlights from that day are still on the Premier League website under the headline "Iconic."
Now, that word should no longer be used. It has gone, forever tainted. The title will have an asterisk by it, and no football fan will ever view it in the same way. We are all questioning whether we can believe anything we have seen, not just from that sunny day on May 13, 2012, but every trophy, every parade and every goal since.
Biggest scandal in British sport
It does not just destroy City's legacy. It also takes a huge chunk out of the Premier League history books, and that is why every football fan should feel angry. The best league in the world is forever tainted, with nearly two decades called into question.
City will now be known as the "sham" club. The word sham was used eight times in the 40-page redacted legal document which found the club guilty of breaching the Premier League's spending rules between 2009/10 and 2017/18. But it goes further than that, because can we believe anything since? The four-in-a-row titles, the 2023 Champions League success and the 2019 Treble.
They absolutely dominated English football, and yet they cheated their way to success. If they had not "systematically" broken the Premier League rules through fraudulent sponsorship deals, the club would not have been able to dominate English football for so long. This is the biggest scandal in the history of British sport and the biggest disgrace in English football.
Questions over every achievement
It calls into question way beyond 2018, because would they have been able to recruit the best manager and the best players without previous success? Of course not. City's hierarchy have to be stripped of the club, not allowed to run a club, and the devastating series of documents also suggest State ownership and fraud which must run into criminal offences. It is impossible to imagine Abu Dhabi could carry on from this point, and the legacy and history is already destroyed.
Pep Guardiola, in my opinion, is the greatest coach in the Premier League era, but now even his achievements are tainted by this scandal. City have won eight Premier League titles, but should any of them count? What about those incredible memories and players? The final day success in 2022 when they came from behind to beat Aston Villa 3-2. The records. The 100-points-plus season. I was there for so many of those achievements and marvelled at their football. How naive was I?
Disguised funding scheme exposed
What does it all mean now? They have cheated us all. What did the players know? What did Guardiola know? Furthermore, what about the clubs who finished second in all of those years? Liverpool were runners-up three times. Arsenal twice. This scandal has torn the game apart. The sheer scale of the deception is mind-blowing, with the index of the evidence running to more than 750 pages and the core bundle of documents running to tens of thousands of pages.
Key to this is the Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development's sponsorship and a "disguised funding scheme" in the Premier League statement. As part of the scheme, further "sham" arrangements, funded by ADUG, were entered into to enable the club to record lower operating expenses than it actually incurred, as well as a "sham" circular arrangement with Fordham, an entity that purchased the club's players' image rights, funded by ADUG.
The breach of the rules "enabled" the club to put itself on a different level. That is why it is not just the Aguero moment which has been ruined, but every achievement since. Without the foundation of "success" from 2009 to 2018, they would not have won so many trophies afterwards. It is unquestionable. Guardiola should be angry. Every City fan should be angry. The ownership has betrayed us all. Every memory, every achievement and every trophy is ruined. It is almost stripping City of titles, because they have done that to themselves already.
