[Senator Clay Davis]

Great article on the super league, Man City and FFP.

That is the true image cast by the revelations of the last week, one that has ramifications far beyond tribal self-interest: of not just one club, but of a whole host of them that believe the rules should be altered to fit their needs; of teams so inflated by success that they can now casually disregard the diktats of their governing bodies; of teams too big to fail, beyond control.

That is what led City both to deceive and then disdain UEFA. It is what led to the endless changes to the Champions League and the tweaks to domestic cup competitions and a series of bans for illegally approaching, or signing, young players: an essential arrogance, a disregard for consequence, a belief that might makes right. It is what threatens the fundamental rupture in the fabric of the game best reflected in that Bayern-concocted plot for a breakaway super league that would involve pulling players out of all international soccer, including the World Cup.

Perhaps it is understandable that City tried to circumvent a set of rules designed, to a large extent, specifically to protect the teams it was trying to usurp. Perhaps it was justified in fighting, tooth and nail, the idea that it might be punished by what it considers a rigged system. Perhaps UEFA got lucky that it did not go to court. Perhaps, too, it would be evidence of a skewed morality to condemn City’s owners for all of that but not for the allegations of human rights abuses and oppression they have overseen in the United Arab Emirates.

But to turn a blind eye to that, as the game’s authorities seem likely to do, is to help yet again usher in a game with one rule for the rich and another for the poor; a game of governing bodies that cower at the trembling fist of the great and the good; a game of teams who decide which rules suit them, and when, and of authorities who act at the behest of their most powerful subjects and fans that contort themselves to praise actions that might otherwise draw scorn. It is to embrace a game that is not being run in the interests of the many, but the few, and a world where the quality of an idea is no match for a quantity of petrol.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/s...all-leaks.html