Manchester City's ongoing saga over 115 alleged Premier League breaches has stirred up a world of alternate histories, with endless hypotheticals and split narratives dominating the discourse. As the football world waits for a verdict, the story shows no signs of being cut short.
Press conferences and hypotheticals
Even New Romantics have a view. In a recent interview on TalkSport, Tony Hadley, an Arsenal fan, sidestepped a question about City's potential punishment, pivoting to his upcoming big band tour and Christmas catalogue. This has led to a suggestion that Enzo Maresca, the City manager, might adopt a similar strategy to avoid difficult questions—organising a 20-date big band tour of the UK.
The magnitude of the story has made even routine press conferences interesting. For the first time since players walking off a bus in big headphones became part of the spectacle, there is interest in seeing players doing so on Sunday afternoon, with Liverpool away—a side City have pipped to the title by a point or two three times since the alleged cheating began.
What ifs and alternate histories
The hypotheticals never end. What if City couldn't have afforded John Stones (height: 1.88m) and had settled for, say, Victor Lindelöf (1.87m)? How vital was that extra one centimetre of Stones in clearing that ball off the line against Liverpool at the Etihad in January 2019?
Nicky Bandini explained on Thursday's Football Weekly that Serie A has two histories depending on where you stand on Juventus and Calciopoli. He said: "I think that's the truth that English football isn't ready for yet. Whatever happens with these decisions, whether they successfully end up appealing things or they don't, you're going to have one group of supporters who are absolutely certain they didn't win these trophies legitimately, and therefore they don't count, and you're going to have one group of supporters who don't care and are going to claim those trophies whether or not they get taken away from them."
"I think that's the grim future that lies ahead for the Premier League. You're going to have two alternate histories, the same that happens in Italy, where the number of titles that Juventus has won is constantly repeated differently by different sources because one side or another is not going to accept the judgment even after the final appeals are exhausted."
Geopolitics and sanctions
There is a view that stripping City of the titles but not assigning them to anyone else is preferable, as football isn't that simple. If City don't sign those players, they sign other players, and games and results are different. This leads to questions about Sergio Agüero's goal and his whole life after 2011.
Then there's the geopolitics. If the sanctions aren't of the highest severity, it's impossible not to wonder whether anything has happened in the corridors of power. Will the UAE really refuse to scrap investment in a tech hub between Cambridge and Oxford if Manchester City are relegated to League Two?
While waiting for the punishment to drop on a quiet Friday, perhaps during the next international break, City have football matches to play, whether they'll ultimately mean anything or not. Pundits will say "galvanise" a lot, and there will be talk of an "us against the world mentality".
Who will be the first player to tell Erling Haaland to look forward to Salford away next year? It's hard for Elliot Anderson to spend much time thinking about the possible sanctions while he's trying to fend off Dominik Szoboszlai and Florian Wirtz. Regardless of the result on Sunday, conclusions will be drawn about what impact this news has had—and they may be wildly wrong.
Sympathy and moral dilemmas
Most City fans deserve sympathy, though perhaps not the guy on a radio phone-in comparing this rule-breaking to Emmeline Pankhurst's fight for female suffrage. That complete loss of objectivity is part of the beauty of football and sport—somewhere we all lose all rational sense.
The owners have dragged the club into this and should go, but even that is an almighty mess to untangle. At the same time, would City really swap the journey and highs for finishing 12th every season for the past 15 years? Like all moral dilemmas, it's easy to have a strong opinion when it doesn't affect you and you're in a shed talking to a New Romantic.
