The Etihad Stadium has not hosted a men's match since the Premier League's verdict was announced. The fallout from the biggest scandal in British football history has entered a second week, with Manchester City fans defiantly defending the club despite being found guilty of all serious charges.
Oasis singer Liam Gallagher, in a social media response, called rival fans "NEUROTIC little GIMPS" after they wanted City to lose all their trophies. On the Bluemoon forum, the biggest City fan site, the tone has been similarly defiant, with gallows humour. One user asked: "Have we been blamed for the Titanic hitting the iceberg yet?" Another wrote: "Manchester City shot JFK." A third said: "This isn't just a fight between the PL & City. It's a fight for the heart, soul & future of football."
Fan reluctance to accept wrongdoing
The forum has over 192,000 posts since the initial charges against City in 2023. The Premier League, jealous rivals, and the media all come under heavy fire, yet there remains a reluctance among fans to accept wrongdoing or criticise the club's owners.
According to Irish academic Colm Kearns, one reason is that the United Arab Emirates has not only brought unprecedented success and forged emotional bonds with City fans "but have also co-opted elements of the club's fanbase as aggressive defenders of their regime". In 2023, Kearns and his colleagues analysed posts from City fans and found some would "overlook ethical violations by the Group, but decry and – in some cases – attack the Group's critics."
Social media's role in tribal myopia
Kearns told the Guardian that some sports journalists had self-censored because of online abuse from City fans. "We had people talking about how fans would go online and try to find their troll through their personal social feeds, and it sent that on to their editor to get them in trouble," he said.
Social media has created tribal online spaces for sports fans. Kearns said: "I think it makes fans perhaps more tribally myopic than they would have been before and less likely to look outside of their own club's perspective." Academics also talk of "sports fandom circles", a phenomenon from east Asia with popular culture and music, where supporters fiercely defend their teams, but it hardly encourages lighthearted banter or compromise.
In City's case, Kearns suspects some fans are putting the club above the wider game, citing a Reddit post that said: "I am a City fan first and a football fan second." It is impossible to know how many online posters do not live in Manchester or go to games, and therefore feel the need to prove their credentials by sticking up for the club at all costs.
Wider implications for football
Kearns suggests that if you were a far-right tech billionaire, you might want to buy a successful sports team, especially if you knew there was an army of potential defenders of your reputation among your new fanbase.
On other clubs' fan forums, the overwhelming majority welcomed the guilty verdict, even if some questioned whether City would really get properly punished given the relationship with Abu Dhabi and the British government. One wrote: "Once you lose faith that the rules apply equally, football becomes something else. Every title, every match, carries a question mark. I feel cheated. I'm one of the victims. And for that, I hate Manchester City."
